


Echoes in the Void

by Scedasticity



Series: Start Again [3]
Category: Persona 5
Genre: Gen, New Game Plus, No Major Character Death, Sort Of, about the warnings, everything is non-graphic or offscreen or both but There Exists Bad Stuff, more characters may be tagged as they appear, most of them are 'about the same as in canon', quite the contrary
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-29
Updated: 2018-10-20
Packaged: 2019-04-29 17:16:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 21,528
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14477478
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Scedasticity/pseuds/Scedasticity
Summary: Goro fails to take control of his destiny, but maybe that's okay.





	1. Headshot

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know how fast this one is going to be -- I'll need to make some decisions about future plot trajectories as I go, and that may take a while.

_Goro walked through a long, empty hall. He had no idea where he was going — or intention of going anywhere — but his body moved without any direction to a lone door, into a small dark room where a prisoner sat behind a table._

_Goro's mouth moved, saying something, but he couldn't hear over the roaring in his ears._

_Then he shot the prisoner in the face._ Then he woke up.

* * *

It wasn't Goro's first disturbing dream.

* * *

_Goro walked through a long, empty hall. He had no idea where he was going — or intention of going anywhere — but his body moved without any direction to a lone door, into a small dark room where a prisoner sat behind a table. It was an older boy, in an unfamiliar school uniform._

_Goro's mouth moved, saying something, but he couldn't hear over the roaring in his ears._

_Then he shot the boy in the face._ Then he woke up.

* * *

It wasn't his first recurring disturbing dream, either.

* * *

_Goro walked through a long, empty hall. He had no idea where he was going — or intention of going anywhere — but his body moved without any direction to a lone door, into a small dark room where a prisoner sat behind a table. It was an older boy, in an unfamiliar school uniform._

_Goro's mouth moved, saying something, but he couldn't hear over the roaring in his ears. The boy might have replied._

_Then he shot the boy in the face._ Then he woke up.

* * *

It wasn't even his first recurring dream about killing someone. _That_ honor went to a horrific little nightmare about his mother, which his subconscious had cooked up before he was old enough to understand you _didn't talk about things like that_. (Fortunately the supervisors at the short-term group home were accustomed to children from even more troubled backgrounds and had calmly reassured him it was shock and misplaced guilt and it would pass in time. Unfortunately the other kids heard about it and… well.)

(He still couldn't decide if 'there's nothing wrong with you that you can't overcome with time and effort' was a kind lie, or one of the cruelest.)

(It had not passed in time. Not completely. It still popped up occasionally. After the first time he saw Shido he had it every night for a week.)

* * *

_Goro walked through a long, empty hall. He had no idea where he was going — or intention of going anywhere — but his body moved without any direction to a lone door, into a small dark room where a prisoner sat behind a table. It was an older boy, in an unfamiliar school uniform, with glasses and gray eyes._

_Goro's mouth moved, saying something, but he couldn't hear over the roaring in his ears. The boy might have replied._

_Then he shot the boy in the face._ Then he woke up.

* * *

Then there had been a dream about one of his foster fathers, which had mostly gone away after he'd left that house, and then more recently Tsuda-sensei. Those had arguably been an improvement on the _other_ dreams involving Tsuda-sensei, but happily both had tapered off after her rage fugue.

* * *

_Goro walked through a long, empty hall. He had no idea where he was going — or intention of going anywhere — but his body moved without any direction to a lone door, into a small dark room where a prisoner sat behind a table. It was an older boy, in a long black coat and red gloves, with a mask and gray eyes._

_Goro's mouth moved, saying something, but he couldn't hear over the roaring in his ears. The boy might have replied._

_Then he shot the boy in the face._ Then he woke up.

* * *

Goro wasn't stupid. He knew dreams about killing people fueled by hate and fear would not be met with nearly as much sympathy as dreams fueled by guilt. Lucky he was smart enough not to talk about them now, wasn't he?

Not that he knew _what_ the hell was fueling this latest one.

* * *

_Goro walked through a long, empty hall. He had no idea where he was going — or intention of going anywhere — but his body moved without any direction to a lone door, into a small dark room where a prisoner sat behind a table. It was an older boy, in an unfamiliar school uniform, with glasses and gray eyes._

_Goro's mouth moved, saying something, but he couldn't hear over the roaring in his ears._

_"We've got to stop meeting like this," the boy replied._

_Then he shot the boy in the face._ Then he woke up.

* * *

In a lot of ways the latest dream was similar to the oldest. He was like a passenger in his own body. And dream-Tsuda-sensei and dream-Ebina-san had always died bloodlessly, even though Ebina-san in particular _really_ shouldn't have, in the given scenario. 

This one was… not bloodless.

* * *

_Goro walked through a long, empty hall. He had no idea where he was going — or intention of going anywhere — but his body moved without any direction to a lone door, into a small dark room where a prisoner sat behind a table. It was an older boy, in an unfamiliar school uniform, with glasses and gray eyes._

_Goro's mouth moved, saying something, but he couldn't hear over the roaring in his ears._

_"Aren't you getting tired of this?" the boy replied. "I'm getting tired of this."_

_Then he shot the boy in the face._ Then he woke up.

* * *

He just couldn't figure out where the dream was _coming_ from. It was a real gun, not his laser gun from the Metaverse. He hadn't shot any Shadows in the face that he could think of anyway. And the boy wasn't anyone he recognized.

* * *

_Goro walked through a long, empty hall. He had no idea where he was going — or intention of going anywhere — but his body moved without any direction to a lone door, into a small dark room where a prisoner sat behind a table. It was an older boy, in an unfamiliar school uniform, with glasses and gray eyes._

_Goro's mouth moved, saying something, but he couldn't hear over the roaring in his ears._

_"You know I'd been thinking this is a replay of what happened, with the cognitive me, but it can't be, because in all the reports, it said there was a_ guard," _the boy replied. "And I'd never considered it — was it a real guard or a cognitive guard? If it was a real one, did his body just get left in the Metaverse? Did anyone ever ask any questions about that?"_

 _Then he shot the boy in the face._ Then he woke up.

* * *

And it just. Kept. _Coming._ Not every night, but usually at least once a week, and _that was plenty_. He had _enough_ stress with finishing middle school, starting high school, various Metaverse activities, not to mention preparing to…

Well.

He couldn't even say he was preparing to _gamble_ everything he'd clawed past obstacles to achieve. Sure, he'd had a few… childish fantasies of being lauded and celebrated as the hero who brought down the corrupt monster. Sometimes they lasted for a while. Days at a time, even, sometimes, if he overheard anyone relieved that a rage fugue had removed someone from authority. But honestly? Seriously? When he was lying awake at night, and really thought about it?

* * *

_Goro walked through a long, empty hall. He had no idea where he was going — or intention of going anywhere — but his body moved without any direction to a lone door, into a small dark room where a prisoner sat behind a table. It was an older boy, in an unfamiliar school uniform, with glasses and gray eyes._

_Goro's mouth moved, saying something, but he couldn't hear over the roaring in his ears._

_"You don't have to do this, you know," the boy replied._

_Then he shot the boy in the face._ Then he woke up.

* * *

Heroes didn't creep people out when they tried to smile at them. Heroes didn't have to _learn_ to smile at people and _practice_ in the mirror. Heroes didn't dream about caving in their foster father's skull with a lamp or pushing their homeroom teacher out a window. Heroes didn't get money for doing other people's schoolwork, and they _definitely_ didn't deal with someone refusing to pay by getting another customer to menace them. They helped the police catch drug dealers because it was the right thing to do, not because… there'd been several motivations there, actually, but none of them had been very righteous.

Heroes probably didn't approve of assholes threatening random passersby who _breathed_ on their _very valuable, you brats_ cars with violence or arrest, but they didn't respond by spitefully taking the time to search a whole new Palace and skipping dinner to give them rage fugues _right_ when they would most likely be pulling out of their _precious_ reserved parking spaces — and if they did do that? They weren't _gleeful_ when they learned the asshole had subsequently driven through the store window with the _really annoying_ display. (He was pretty sure he would have regretted it if anyone had been seriously hurt. Pretty sure.)

Heroes might be rejected, for a little while, but they didn't sometimes just want to _burn_ the world that rejected them.

* * *

_Goro walked through a long, empty hall. He had no idea where he was going — or intention of going anywhere — but his body moved without any direction to a lone door, into a small dark room where a prisoner sat behind a table. It was an older boy, in an unfamiliar school uniform, with glasses and gray eyes._

_Goro's mouth moved. "Why do you keep talking to me? You know I'm not even here."_

_The boy blinked._

_Then he shot the boy in the face._ Then he woke up.

* * *

No, Goro couldn't be a hero. He was twisted beyond repair. When he fell, and he would fall, he would deserve it. But with the Metaverse and Robin Hood and _Loki_ , he could be a player, not just an unwanted pawn — and he could drag Shido down with him.

* * *

_Goro walked through a long, empty hall. He had no idea where he was going — or intention of going anywhere — but his body moved without any direction to a lone door, into a small dark room where a prisoner sat behind a table. It was an older boy, in an unfamiliar school uniform—_ Except it wasn't unfamiliar anymore. He'd seen it, the previous day, when he went looking for Noir. _—with glasses and gray eyes._

Before he'd found Niijima and they'd gone into the disgusting castle to keep Noir's blackmail from getting him prematurely killed— _Goro's mouth moved, saying something, but he couldn't hear over the roaring in his ears._ —he'd seen a few male students around Shuujin Academy, and this was that uniform—

_The boy might have replied._

—in a dream he'd been having for _months_.

And maybe some of his shock had filtered through, somehow, because _Goro froze, with the gun pressed against the boy's forehead._

 _The boy reached up and took hold of the barrel and moved the gun to point down at the table. "Why don't you tell me who_ is _here, then?"_

He woke up.

* * *

He tried to convince himself that the prisoner's uniform hadn't always been the Shuujin uniform — it must have changed into that just now, because Noir and everything associated with her were looming rather large at the moment.

Noir changed _everything_ , and explained nothing.

Goro sort of hoped investigating her father and her father's involvement with Shido might clear a few things up, but it did not. Her father didn't even _have_ any involvement with Shido yet, although he'd clearly be up for that sort of thing.

…According to their driver('s Shadow), "Haru" had undergone a sudden behavior change at the start of the school year. Interesting. But it still _explained nothing_.

* * *

_"He doesn't deserve any help," Goro heard himself say. He was slumped against a rusting metal wall and staring into the muzzle of a gun. The person behind it was blurry. "He's young and stupid and he thinks he knows what it is to make hard choices. He thinks he's given up on being a hero but the truth is he still thinks revenge will make his life make sense and fix what's broken in him."_

_"You don't think that? You seemed rather committed to revenge," the prisoner boy's voice said, on the other side of the metal wall._

_"Oh, I am," Goro said. "More than anything. I just understand that nothing can fix what's wrong with me."_

_There was a noise so loud he could hardly hear it, and pain._ Then he woke up.

* * *

Running a Palace with someone else was… eye-opening. He'd expected it to be easier, but not _that much_ easier. Even with Niijima still new at things, it was easier. And the _healing_! If one of his Personas could do that, he wouldn't have to spend three-quarters of his Mementos income buying contraband remedies under the table from a sketchy pharmacist. And most people only had one Persona at a time, but if he was understanding Noir correctly, someone capable of having two might be capable of having more. Possibly by 'recruiting' them, whatever the hell _that_ meant.

It hadn't been very eye-opening about Noir, sadly. Just that she _really_ knew what she was doing despite needing to be saved in the castle, was terrifying with a battle-axe, had somehow procured a model grenade launcher, and was deeply invested in the well-being of Niijima — which made sense, she was a competent partner and they acted like friends besides — and Kunikazu Okumura. That part did _not_ make sense.

Then there was the stuff about _Treasures_ and _changes of heart_. It sounded ridiculous, even compared to the Metaverse stuff he'd seen for himself, but Noir had been right about _everything else_ so far, so it was probably a safe bet.

…Everything directly involving the Metaverse, anyway.

* * *

_"He's a_ coward," _Goro heard himself say, staring up the muzzle of a gun. The face of the person holding it was blurry, but slowly coming into focus. "Once you pick a path you need to_ commit _to it, not… wander off because something unexpected happens and you're_ scared. _He should know by now there are no gifts which aren't poison inside."_

_"I'm not sure what to say to that, but I am listening," the boy said, on the other side of the wall. The door._

_"He's stupid," Goro heard himself say. "He's stupid and thinks he's dirty_ now _and he's_ rotten _all the way through."_

_The face behind the gun came into focus._

_"He still has a chance," said… one of them._

_There was a noise so loud he could hardly hear it, and pain._ Then he woke up.

If this was going to be the replacement, he wanted the murder dreams back.

* * *

Instead, though, he got a break from dreaming of shooting people in first _or_ second person. Which was good.

Honestly he had enough to worry about with Noir. He still had no idea where she came from or how she knew everything she knew or what her long-term intentions involving Goro were — because she did not like him, she looked at him like a potential problem, _he could tell_ — but at least he knew what her immediate goals were (protecting Kunikazu Okumura, despite the absence of any tangible benefit to it) and that at the moment he was _useful_. Useful was good. Niijima was learning fast, but Goro was still better. 

In early May he walked into Ikuyo Kishi's labyrinthine Palace (very literally labyrinthine — he still wasn't clear on what the woman's job even was but her name had come up several times with Shido's flunkies' Shadows and she apparently saw the Tokyo government building as a maze with a monster in the middle) and walked out a few hours later with significantly depleted health and a new Persona. (He'd been on the verge of summoning Loki and getting the hell out when Defarge finally decided to show up. Then he had to summon Loki and get the hell out anyway because using Defarge in battle turned out to be an incredibly terrible idea.)

The dream was _different_.

* * *

The no-longer-a-prisoner boy leaned on the counter of a small cafe. "So I've heard what you had to say about you — what do you have to say about you?"

Goro could actually talk, this time. "I know what you mean but I don't want to answer because that sentence was just that terrible." Not as terrible as what dream-Goro had said, though. "I _don't_ think revenge will fix what's wrong with me. It's just… it's _just_. He needs to go down. It has nothing to do with fixing me."

The boy nodded. "So… what's wrong with you, then?"

Nothing. Everything. _Something_. "According to one of my former foster siblings, I'm the type who will either become a serial killer, become creepily infatuated with a serial killer, or at best be kidnapped, molested, and cut into small pieces by a serial killer."

The boy's eyebrows did an interesting dance. "Well, given _those_ options…" He slid a cup of coffee across the counter. "You weren't very coherent towards the end, but do you know what you meant by coward?"

Goro tried the coffee. It was _perfect_. "…Shido. I was going to talk to Shido, to start… everything, and I haven't."

The boy nodded slowly. "I can see how that would be a sore point… Why not?"

"…Too much of a risk. Or not that exactly, but…" Somehow talking to the boy felt… natural. It was bizarre. "If that blackmail drops… I'm probably dead no matter what, but if he's never heard of me before he'll just disappear me quietly as cleanup. Throwaway child, could get into all sorts of bad situations — he could probably buy it as part of a cost-saving hit bundle. It might not be fast, but it wouldn't be slower than necessary."

"You've thought about this," the boy said. 

"But if I'm _working_ for him… if I was _working_ for him, and he thought I was a _traitorous_ liability?" Goro shook his head. 

The boy's eyes were distant. "Yeah, that's… probably a good call. I don't think he'd take that… well."

"I'm prepared to die for this." And he _was_ , no matter what the… other him had said. "I'm not…" He picked up his coffee and turned away, unable to meet the boy's eyes. "…Is it raining blood outside?"

"Seems that way," said the boy.

"This is a _weird_ dream."

But he woke up without anyone having been shot in the face. So there was that.


	2. Breakdowns

Goro was willing to let Noir do things her way with the whole fiancé farce. She had been _notably_ not pushy about the group home thing, he could return the favor and not try to get further into _her_ mortifying personal business.

Although he was only getting more and more confused about why she seemed to _care_ about Okumura. Care about what he did or what happened to him, fine, that made sense when he thought all the way through it — despite how she acted Noir was young enough that being orphaned would be a serious inconvenience at best, even with the money she'd inherit, and as long as Okumura was alive anything that happened to him would impact her. His getting involved with Shido could have all sorts of undesirable consequences for Noir, and Noir's financial stability, and any associates of the family that Noir actually liked. Her stake in all this was obvious.

But she actually seemed to care about _him_. She didn't want him to be _hurt_. She talked about the 'change of heart' thing like it was intended to _help_ him. She wanted him to be okay for his own sake, not just for hers.

And _yes_ , Goro was _aware_ that wasn't an unusual way to feel about one's parents. But Noir was ruthless, and Okumura was _awful_ , and _sometimes Goro_ hated _it when people were loved just for_ existing.

Anyway. Noir's business.

(Niijima's opinion of Okumura's redeeming value or lack thereof was rapidly approaching Goro's after the latest development, because Niijima was maddeningly sheltered in some ways but she wasn't _stupid_. An arranged marriage in this day and age? Ugh, but rich people were like that. An arranged marriage at fifteen? Getting questionable even for rich people. And arranged marriage as a _disciplinary measure_?)

 _Anyway_. Noir's business.

Besides, it wasn't like Goro didn't have plenty to keep himself busy with during the group's enforced downtime, even besides school. There was information gathering in Mementos, and a few particularly _rancid_ Mementos-pockets whose owners could do with a rage-fugue-induced ego puncturing before they turned all the way into Palaces. And also…

* * *

"So, what are you up to?" the boy asked. They were in a train station this time, or maybe Mementos. Not as pleasant as the cafe, but much better than either of the… shooting locations.

Goro was tempted to complain about Okumura's general worthlessness and undesirability, but decided that didn't qualify as staying out of Noir's business. "Trying to decide if I should take down Dr. Sasaki," he said instead, also truthfully. "Considering some of the shit he's pulled he _richly_ deserves it, but I might still need him."

"Who's Dr. Sasaki, and how are you planning to take him down?" the boy asked, not unreasonably.

"I haven't _decided_ if I'm going to," Goro corrected. "But if I go directly to his Palace after school I should be able to trigger a rage fugue in the middle of the after-work rush. Going berserk in front of all his _legitimate_ customers should ruin… well, ruin that half of his business." Maybe not the other half, but if he lost his building that should at least really set it back, shouldn't it? "As for who he is, his pharmacy is where I buy all my Recov-R and Nohar-M."

"Useful to have," the boy said.

"Yes. I also occasionally bought stimulants and sleep aids from him all through middle school. Most of them weren't illegal drugs, but it wasn't legal to sell them to me. He does a lot of business like that."

The boy's mouth twitched. "Still very useful, if unscrupulous."

"Yes, exactly. And if people want to fry their brains that's their own problem."

"Hmm," said the boy. "So what shit did he pull that has you considering taking him down?"

"He's a creep, first of all," Goro said. "Always has been. He offers customers discounts for sexual favors."

The boy straightened. "Akechi — you—?"

"No, I'm too young for him." Or had been until just recently, but Sasaki had been there the time another customer had touched Goro's face unexpectedly and Goro had freaked out and bitten the man's hand, rather badly. (Or rather well, depending on how you looked at it.) Any future favors Sasaki wanted from Goro would likely not involve close contact. "And most people he doesn't push, if they turn down the discount. But he's really _smug_ about it if they don't. And he asks again if someone attractive is getting really hooked. Which is hardly unusual for a drug dealer, but still very unappealing."

"I see," the boy said.

"Secondly, I'm not sure whether it's to maximize his profits or make it so he's not ordering a suspicious amount of anything from his legitimate suppliers, but he adulterates his product. He sells you a bottle of pills that are two thirds real and one third inert. Or half and half. _Both illegal and legal customers._ " Goro wasn't sure why he found that particularly egregious, given that he was unlikely ever to be a legal customer, but he did.

"So, someone going there for pain pills after surgery or to pick up their prescription for attention deficit disorder is likely to find their medication not working half the time, and not even know why, because they trust him," the boy said. "Yeah, that's shitty."

"And it has been the whole time I've known him, but I _needed_ him. I'm not sure I would have survived the last six months without him. Life stones and beads are better, but I can't _count_ on having those when I need them, and my roommates have a possibly supernatural ability to locate and devour any food stashes so I can't plan ahead with those, either."

"Frustrating. But…"

"But _healing_. I'm sure Loki and Robin Hood can't learn any, but I'm not certain about Defarge, and anyway what if I could get another Persona which could? It's possible. Noir complains about healing using too much magic, but even if you have to leave immediately after the battle, if it just lets you _survive the battle_ —"

"Which is easier in a group anyway," the boy pointed out.

Goro looked down. The floor couldn't decide whether it was tile or… whatever the floor in Mementos was made of. "Yes, but they won't keep me around forever."

"Hmmm," said the boy. "You should tell them you're not working for Shido this time."

"No, I shouldn't."

"Why not?"

"I'm sure Noir already knows, she knows everything. She's just waiting for me to admit I have _no_ backing."

"I really don't think she does."

"Nobody asked for your opinion," Goro snapped.

The boy raised an eyebrow at him, because they both knew _perfectly well_ that this _entire conversation_ was Goro implicitly asking for advice from the _stranger in his weird recurring dreams_.

* * *

He went ahead with the rage fugue on Sasaki. Even if it did only shut down the legitimate half of the business, at least the under-the-table customers knew what they were getting into with him.

Sasaki's Palace was like some sort of weird nature documentary with Sasaki as the researcher watching all the animals struggling and suffering and tearing each other down. There were at least no identifiable cognitive doubles — because everyone was a meerkat or something, but whatever.

* * *

Noir did not have the situation as much under control as she said she did. She was almost normal on Saturday in the space station, just a little less focused maybe. She lost track of her magic levels and had to have two of the arginades. She suggested Niijima use a spell Niijima didn't actually have access to, but the lower level version worked fine.

On Sunday in the laboratory, she was clearly not well-rested, definitely less focused, and making mistakes. She didn't cure the burn everyone got from a Equine Sage until Niijima reminded her. She had to be reminded that Chanting Baboons used magic she was weak to — it was a good thing she had good evasion — and again that they were weak to _her_ magic. She lost track of her ammunition levels. There weren't catastrophic consequences, because she had backup and Niijima wasn't shy about giving reminders, but… mistakes. Goro wasn't even sure she'd noticed.

Afterwards in the train station, Niijima lingered after Noir left instead of leaving Goro's company as quickly as possible. "It makes me very, _very_ angry that all _this_ is the result of a fiancé who 'isn't that bad'," she said. "'It could be worse,' she says. 'He's not a bad man.'"

"It _could_ be worse," Goro said. "It could be _much_ worse. There are people who would sell their firstborn to be in Noir's position." But… "But 'not a bad man' isn't how I would describe someone who agreed to engagement to a fifteen-year-old who obviously isn't willing."

" _Yes_ ," Niijima hissed. "I don't know what sort of standards Haru is using, I feel like I shouldn't ask how she _got_ them, but I'm sick of her _defending_ him."

"Why not, she keeps defending Okumura?"

"She doesn't keep _downplaying_ things with her father."

No, she just carefully never mentioned most of the incredibly awful things he was up to. She'd be downplaying like hell if either Goro or Niijima brought them up.

Still, it wasn't like she was _ignoring_ Okumura's misdeeds.

"Has she told you his name?" he asked Niijima, casually. "I don't think she's mentioned it in front of me."

Possibly deliberately.

* * *

Saburo Tomioka did not have a Palace, but he was in Mementos. Not that it mattered to Goro.

It was just a convenient name to check out, since he was experimenting with Defarge in Mementos after his usual information-gathering rounds. Aiyatsbus, fourth area. Defarge made this a lot easier. Shame about the vulnerabilities.

And he might as well check it out, since he was there _anyway_. Goro was just. Curious. That was all.

Tomioka — or his Shadow, rather — wasn't the blandest-looking evil person Goro had ever seen, or the most evil bland-looking one. There was a lot of competition. Tomioka really _could_ be _much_ worse.

"This is _it_ ," the Shadow ranted. "It's not perfect, the girl's too _young_ , but this is _it_. This is my way _up_. To the next level! This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity!"

"You care that she's young but not that she's not interested?" Goro asked, but it didn't seem to hear him.

"Riku will understand — I'll make him understand. It's not like we could be together publicly without ruining my prospects anyway, marriage isn't any more than a step further! The girl doesn't matter, the position matters — finally _get somewhere_ in this _miserable_ company—"

Huh.

Well. Still Noir's business.

* * *

If Goro had harbored any suspicions that Noir's poor performance in the laboratory on Sunday was due to not caring as much — which he had _not_ , he wasn't _that_ paranoid, really — the space station on Saturday would have settled them. She was _very_ off. Her resistance to ailments seemed to be down, which he hadn't even known could happen due to stress. She almost attacked an Awakened God with her grenade launcher despite _definitely knowing_ it would reflect that, from unpleasant firsthand experience back in April. When Niijima reminded her about that, she attacked with her axe, rather than the magic it was _weak to_. After that, she couldn't decide which of two robots they should ambush, and vacillated long enough that they ended up caught between them. They made it through without anyone having to be revived, but it was _close_. Niijima called a halt, even though they hadn't made the next safe room.

"I'm so sorry," Noir said as they returned to the real world. "I'll be… _functional_ again tomorrow, I promise."

" _You_ aren't the one who needs to apologize," Niijima said darkly.

"It's a difficult situation for you," Goro said, instead of pointing out that she'd gotten worse every day since the fiancé's dinners started up so far and he didn't know why she thought she'd start getting better.

He said it to Niijima instead, after Noir left.

Niijima grimaced, but shook her head. "No, tomorrow she really might be less distracted than today — her father's joining them for dinner tonight, and she's… worried about it." She crossed her arms. "I wish she sounded _surer_ about her father rescinding the engagement after the change of heart. She should be surer."

"Hmm," Goro said.

Okumura wouldn't rescind the engagement after the 'change of heart' if they couldn't _get that far_ , and at the moment he had some doubts about that.

They needed the engagement rescinded _now_. Tomioka wasn't going to break it off because of anything about the engagement itself — it was his step up into the _next echelon_ , which Goro might have sympathized with more if Tomioka's current echelon hadn't involved more money than all Goro's past foster parents and Niijima's sister put together. Okumura wasn't going to break it off because of his daughter's objections, because he was despicable and would probably sell her to the yakuza if he thought it was the best business move.

But that didn't mean there was no way to break it up.

There was blackmail — threaten to expose Tomioka's affair if he didn't abandon the engagement. Or just spill the information directly to Okumura. But that would take time, and involve making contact somehow and risking exposing his identity, and anyway Goro just… didn't want to do that. Tomioka's lover might not deserve it.

Besides. There were more direct approaches.

"She looks awful," he said to Niijima. "Is she going to have time to rest at all before whenever this dinner is supposed to be?"

Plenty of time, as it turned out, to get to Shibuya and then down to Aiyatsbus.

* * *

The timing on Tomioka's rage fugue turned out _perfectly_ , but Noir was annoyingly unappreciative. Although it was sort of hilarious that she'd known he could do that but had forgotten — not chosen not to, but _forgotten_ — to tell Niijima. Niijima was acting very long-suffering.

"So Crow, I'm sure you didn't _tell_ her, you never tell anyone anything either—"

" _Either_?" Noir spluttered.

Ha. "I'm not nearly as bad as she—"

" _Since you never tell anyone anything either_ , but did you know she knew you could do that?"

Good question. Goro certainly wasn't _surprised_ she knew. "I didn't _know_ she knew, but I suspected." He looked at Noir. "You referred to me doing something to people's Shadows, and you've been right about everything else in the Metaverse so far."

It was _maddening_ , how right she was.

"So you're targeting Shido's enemies," Noir said. "To gain his trust."

 _"I don't work for Shido,"_ Goro could have said. Or even, _"He doesn't know I can do that."_ Instead, he looked away and said, "That's— Well, you can see how that would be appealing to a man like Shido."

It was _true_ , technically. And let them keep thinking that someone else would _care_ if Goro disappeared, if only because of his usefulness.

"And he doesn't care about your little… side projects?" Noir probed.

"He… hopefully won't be connecting those to me." Literally true, again.

"Excuse me," Niijima said, actually _raising her hand_. "I meant to ask earlier, but — I don't suppose there's any chance that the Shido we've been discussing is someone other than the increasingly influential politician of that name?"

"Sadly, no," Noir said.

"Drat." Niijma looked at Goro. "And you intend to take him down?"

"I _will_ take him down." If it was the last thing he ever _did_ , if he had to destroy himself in the same fire, if he had to burn the _world_ , he'd take Shido down.

(Maybe not the _entire_ world.)

"It sounds like that's a good idea," Niijima said. "How?"

She _had_ to ask that. It was a reasonable question, though. "I'm… still working on that part." Especially considering how his plan to get close to Shido was still _shot_. "If this Treasure-stealing business works out the way you say it does, it might be a better choice than a rage fugue. More humiliating, at least." Not the either would be easy. "His Palace is huge, though."

" _Definitely_ better than a psychotic breakdown," Noir said. "His conspiracy would probably nurse him right through that."

She was probably right, but he didn't have to admit it. "Rage fugue," he corrected instead.

Noir was annoyingly insistent on the 'psychotic breakdown' terminology. Niijima at least recognized that 'psychotic' was blatantly incorrect, but her proposed compromise of 'Akechi breakdown' was _not appreciated_.

They got moving, finally, but it turned out that just _witnessing_ Tomioka's rage fugue apparently affected Okumura's Palace. And Goro _still would have done it_ if he'd known, because the situation was becoming untenable, but — he hadn't expected it. Noir had been worried about unintended consequences, and here one was. Damn.

They called a halt early due to high security levels and toilet demons. On the way out Noir stopped them to tell Niijima about Mementos. That somehow turned into Goro talking about some of the school-based Palaces he'd encountered. (He almost told them about Tsuda-sensei's greenhouse, but decided against it.) (Compared to the castle it was tame anyway.) They were gratifyingly fascinated and horrified.

And…

"Look, um." Because there _had_ been an unexpected result. "Ishikawa's Palace is more important than any of the ones I dropped, but I don't… _need_ to get through it right away." Not before the end of the _initial evaluation period_. "I'd like to by September, if possible, but I have contingency plans." Sort of. "And… any short-term problems for me, at least for the rest of the year, are likely to be more… reversible than getting involved with Shido."

That was the deciding factor, really. If all else failed, Goro could abandon everything and walk away from Jikken. No one walked away from Shido.

"And since the Palace here _did_ change… if you're really worried about the fiancé thing moving the timeline up… we can put off the laboratory until we've… adjusted your father's attitude, or whatever you call it." Noir's eyes lit up, and he hastily continued so no one would get the idea he was getting _soft_. "But then Jikken before we do anything at Shuujin or wherever—"

"Akechi-kun," Noir said. "Thank you. And I promise we will get on Jikken right away afterwards! _Thank you_."

Goro looked away, feeling his face heat and hating it. Noir had never smiled at him like that before. He wasn't sure _anyone_ had ever smiled at him like that before. "Shido is… bad to get involved with." Genius, they would never have guessed that. "Of course, a breakdown would probably put him off, too—"

" _No_ , Akechi-kun."

* * *

The day's twists weren't quite over. After lights out, his phone vibrated under his pillow. Goro pulled the blankets over his head to hide the glow from his roommates, and pulled up his messages.

MN: Don't ever do that again 

…Niijima never messaged him outside the group chat before. 

Also, that was _very_ vague. 

GA: I assume you don't mean AGREE TO POSTPONE MY OWN AGENDA, so… Rage fugue?

Hell, not even Noir had asked that, if Niijima thought she was in a position to—

MN: Use me for information without telling me. 

Oh.

MN: Tomioka's name? The time of the dinner?

Right. Not stupid. 

GA: What do you mean, without telling you? You knew you were telling me something I didn't know. 

Let's see what she would say to that. 

MN: Don't TRICK me into telling you stuff Haru doesn't want you to know!

Okay, accurate. 

GA: If she didn't want me to know she should have told you not to tell me.  
MN: …

Yeah, she couldn't argue with _that_.

MN: YOU knew  
GA: I wasn't sure, actually  
GA: She might just not have thought it mattered to me  
MN: You knew you were gathering information to do something you could predict she wouldn't want you to do  
MN: And you used me to do it.

And he couldn't very well dispute _that_.

GA: All right, yes, I did.  
GA: But I'm not going to apologize. I did what was necessary.  
MN: I'm not asking you to apologize for anything, I'm saying don't use me like that.  
GA: You think I'm going to halt all my nefarious plans because you said to? Or TELL you about them?  
MN: You could at least tell me about the ones that AREN'T nefarious!  
GA: …  
MN: We might have been able to collaborate on something if you'd been honest with me!

What. 

GA: What.  
MN: Not on a breakdown, but coming up with SOME way to end the engagement immediately?  
MN: We both wanted to do that

Huh.

GA: I'm very surprised to see you say that, Niijima-san  
GA: Considering Noir's obvious preference for dealing with it herself  
MN: Which ordinarily I would respect but she wasn't thinking clearly  
MN: Haru needed help and she wasn't going to admit it, so.  
MN: And I am not a more naive extension of her, all right?  
MN: I am capable of making my own judgments!  
GA: …

Goro stared at his phone for a while, thinking. 

GA: Understood  
GA: I'll keep that in mind  
GA: But I'm not making any promises about my information gathering  
GA: I'd only break them  
MN: …  
MN: Well  
MN: Thank you for being honest about THAT  
GA: You're welcome  
MN: …

There was nothing for a long time. Goro was about to lock the phone and try to sleep when another message popped up. 

MN: I don't want to thank you for giving someone a breakdown. That was a horrible thing to do. But thank you for doing SOMETHING.  
MN: Good night, Akechi-kun.

Huh. 

GA: Good night, Niijima-san.


	3. Change of Heart

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I may want to polish this later, but... I really wanted to post now.

It should have been annoying that the whole Tomioka thing had apparently, _somehow_ , made them _less_ wary of him.

It should have been annoying to have Noir anxiously asking for checks on the conspiracy and her father at least once a week.

It should have been annoying to have Niijima randomly grilling him about rage fugues in the group chat.

It should have been tiresome to try to calculate supplies needed for three people, and get them himself or ask someone else to get them if necessary.

It should have been insulting for someone else to make suggestions about the best Persona for him to use.

It should have been infuriating to put off Ishikawa's Palace for the space station.

It should have been terrifying — should have been terrifying _still_ — that Noir could destroy him easily and he had no leverage against her.

Instead, it was—

Was—

It was—

It felt like maybe he _should_ be making long-term plans with a multiperson party in mind.

* * *

"You can't just _jump through space_!" Niijima said, outraged. "That's — you _die_!"

"Not necessarily, actually," Goro corrected. "You can survive… a certain number of seconds in vacuum, if you follow certain instructions." Neither of which he could remember at the moment. "But you still end up _injured_ , and if you don't do it exactly right, yes, you _die_." He was pretty sure.

Noir rolled her eyes. "It's not _really space_. It's perfectly safe, just a long jump is all. Just stop freaking out and you'll be fine."

Goro supposed he had run into weirder things in the Metaverse. Niijima still looked unconvinced.

"Look, I'll go first. Just follow me, Queen. Crow, you're rearguard."

"Got it." (She trusted him to be rearguard.)

When Goro landed on the other side, he bumped into Noir and Niijima, who had both apparently stopped short to stare at something. Goro suppressed a snide comment about having the brains to clear a landing area, and looked, too.

There was a nebulous glowing thing in the middle of the room. He'd seen a few before, in Palaces he'd had to get a long way into to find the Shadow, but when nothing he did had any effect on them he'd dismissed them as… cosmetic. Symbolic. Something.

"Well. Infiltration route secured, then," Noir said.

…Wait, _this_ was the 'Treasure'?

"It doesn't look very… steal-able," Niijima said, which meant Goro didn't have to.

"No, there's another step to make it materialize," Noir replied. "We can't do it from here. Let's meet tomorrow, in — where's a good place in Shibuya to meet? _Not_ a Big Bang Burger."

* * *

They ended up in a coffeeshop Goro had used for a lot of the tutoring sessions that accompanied his academic assistance business. (He was fairly sure it was a front for _some_ sort of criminal enterprise — it certainly wasn't surviving on the quality of its menu — but the important thing was they didn't mind if you ordered hardly anything and stayed for a long time.) It turned out to be a good choice, since it seemed they were doing an _art project_.

Apparently, to do a 'change of heart', you had to _warn them you were coming_. By the time Goro finished convincing himself not to bang his head on the table over that, Noir and Niijima had moved on to arguing over whether it was safe for Noir to hand-calligraphy the 'calling card'.

No. Just, no.

"So," Goro said to Noir as Niijima traced someone else's handwriting onto the black card. "The… calling card makes the Treasure materialize. What else does it do?"

Noir shrugged, distracted. "Puts the security level up. And we'll probably have to fight the Palace ruler Shadow — there's no… metaphysical reason you couldn't steal the Treasure without that, I don't think, it just… always works out that way."

"Always?" She never _had_ specified whether she'd _done_ this before…

"I think so." She didn't elaborate. Darn.

The finished calling card was… dramatic.

 _Kunikazu Okumura: You are overtaken by greed. I will free you of your distorted desires._  
 _—The Count of Monte Cristo_

"Why sign it that?" Goro asked.

Noir half-shrugged. "It… seemed appropriate. I'll make sure he gets it. And then we have to steal the Treasure the next day. Are we ready?"

There was a long pause.

Niijima sighed. "Actually let's wait until a few more of your vegetables are ready."

Goro had to agree.

* * *

"I haven't actually _fought_ all that many Palace rulers," he explained to the boy. It was more Mementos than train station, this time, and the boy was wearing his long coat and mask. "Much less beaten. Mostly I just… fugue and run."

"I'm impressed you beat _any_ on your own, to be honest," the boy said.

"None of them had Palaces even half — even a _third_ as large as the space station."

The boy smirked. "Good thing you're not trying to tackle it alone, then, isn't it?"

* * *

Even with three people, even with Noir's magic vegetables, even with a full shopping bag of vending machine drinks, even with the bead chain and some other Mementos finds Goro had been hoarding, even with Mediarama and Amrita Shower, even with better gear from the airsoft shop… it was a very hard fight.

Hard enough that Niijima _suggested_ he use the frenzy spell to turn the robots on each other, and Noir agreed. Goro wasn't quite tired enough not to feel vindicated.

* * *

They won.

The Shadow ended up sobbing on the floor. His middle school guidance counselor's Shadow had done something similar, after he'd finally beaten down the damn thing's spell reflectors and before he used the frenzy spell. He hadn't tried to talk to it.

Noir talked to this Shadow. She told it to do better. To fix things.

Personally Goro had some doubts about whether the things Okumura had done _could_ be fixed, but he kept quiet about them.

Noir had him carry the Treasure, which started out as some sort of weird… orb thing, but which… changed, as they ran. He didn't have a lot of attention to spare to see _how_ it was changing, as the Palace was _collapsing_. None of the other Palaces had done that.

He was a little wired, but more exhausted, but Noir was _insistent_ about everyone going to Big Bang Burger and then dessert, and — free food.

He made it back before curfew, just.

* * *

**Group chat:**

HO: It worked.  
MN: I'm so glad!  
GA: It better have worked after all THAT.  
GA: This means he shouldn't try anything else weird, right?  
MN: No more creepy engagements?  
HO: …  
HO: Right.  
HO: I may not be in school tomorrow.

Which no doubt also meant they would not be returning immediately to Ishikawa's Palace. Well, a cooldown period wasn't _unreasonable_. And he had other stuff he could do.

He set a few news alerts for Okumura Foods in general and Kunikazu Okumura in particular. It would be interesting to see how this played out.

* * *

MN: What would you do, if Kamoshida was at your school?  
GA: …  
MN: And you didn't have access to the Metaverse   
GA: I'd keep my head down and steer clear  
GA: Figure out what his targets have in common and not be that  
MN: Okay but what if you HAD to do something about him. What is the sneaky and underhanded thing to do.   
GA: …  
GA: The sneaky and underhanded approach would be to ingratiate myself with him  
GA: See if I could get anything out of it   
MN: …  
MN: That's incredibly unhelpful   
GA: But very creepy and underhanded!  
MN: …  
GA: Nijima-san   
GA: Queen  
GA: I don't use the rage fugues because the other options are too easy and boring  
GA: I use them because the other options suck  
MN: I KNOW that  
MN: There just  
MN: Has to be something   
GA: …  
GA: Just ask her why she doesn't want to destroy his Palace now  
MN: It's because YOUR school is higher on the priority list  
GA: If you really thought that was the only reason you'd have brought it up in the group chat  
MN: She's got a lot on her mind right now

* * *

Evidently how it played out was the rest of Okumura Foods's upper echelons _desperately_ trying to keep a lid on their boss's sudden enthusiasm for reforms, while the news slowly leaked out anyway. Anonymous posters claiming to be inside sources reported crying jags and abruptly trashed long-term plans. Stock prices fell. Big Bang Burger employees speculated on social media whether they would get longer bathroom breaks. The company's future was suddenly full of unanswered questions.

Goro's Mementos-sources reported Okumura was now very much off the list of potential conspiracy recruits, so. Success, as far as they were concerned.

And then they jumped right back in to the laboratory.

* * *

Goro had known what he was getting into with Jikken. Current students were silent, but if you knew where to look it was easy to find _former_ students who were happy to be _very_ explicit about their experiences. He'd checked the MetaNav for the principal after reading the first few statements he'd found, and he'd cased the Palace exterior by February. So he knew going in: this was a school that wanted to cut you up and see you back together in the shape it wanted. 

It hadn't been his only option. Goro was smart — he might have gotten into a decent public high school, even without cram school. He probably would have tried for that, without the Metaverse. 

(Tsuda-sensei was supposedly very good at prepping her _favorites_ for high school entrance exams. Had been, anyway. Goro wasn't sure if he would have been that desperate. For that matter he wasn't sure if Tsuda-sensei would still have been _interested_ if she'd ever gotten close enough to see all the broken glass behind his plastic smile.)

Since he had the Metaverse, and _plans_ involving Shido, he didn't have time to try for a better school. Jikken would suffice to start with. He had the means to get at Ishikawa through his Palace, anyway. First-years had the whole first term as an evaluation period before things got weird. It'd be fine.

He kept on telling himself that until they reached the top of the lab and the _Shadow wasn't there_ , and he was staring down less than a month until second term and who knew how far to the Shadow.

He should probably try to come up with an actual contingency plan. Or at least think about damage control.

* * *

"If they knew about the academic assistance business, I wouldn't have been admitted," Goro told the boy, back in the cafe. "I'm… not very concerned about that coming out now. And obviously they don't know about any Metaverse stuff. But they will have talked to the group home supervisors, some of whom might suspect I've been less than thoroughly compliant with curfew… and at least one of the other residents knows I've been to Sasaki's pharmacy, not that he could confirm to anyone why that's bad without implicating himself, but — rumors. So they might suspect sneaking out, and might suspect drug use."

"And what are the consequences of that?" the boy asked. 

"Random urine tests, to start with." Goro tapped his fingers on the counter. "I'm not actually using anything illegal at this point, but I'll need to avoid anything that might cause a false positive." And— "I don't know if or how any Metaverse treatments might show up."

"I wouldn't think they'd show up at all…"

"Neither would I, but are you _sure_?"

"No. Fair enough. So you'd get expelled?"

"Probably not, actually — if I agreed to go live in the dorms where they could keep a closer watch on me."

"Which would be very bad for Metaverse time," the boy said. "I see…"

"That's an understatement. The group home doesn't have a lot of privacy, but the dorms have _none_. And they ask questions about everything. I'd have to rent a storage locker to keep my weapons and tools and loot in."

"The lockpicks I can see would be a problem — but the _lightsaber_?"

"Childishness and fantasy are both strongly disapproved of." Which would also be a problem when it came to some of Goro's cardboard box of keepsakes. Most of it, in fact. They might accept one or two of the books. "Storage locker. Except that becomes more difficult since they also want you to hand over your _cash_ , supposedly for safekeeping but mostly to make sure you have no cash, and if they catch you hiding it they may confiscate it." Goro would try that route anyway, since he was good at hiding things and as far as he could tell there had only been one strip-search in the last five years, but— "I would _really_ prefer to stay out of the dorms. Anything else should be manageable, as long as I can leave at the end of the day."

"What else are you _expecting_?"

Goro pictured Ishikawa's cognitive version of him — he was pretty sure it was supposed to be him. Placid until it attacked, then _rabid_.

…Ishikawa understood him better than he would have liked, apparently.

"They know I can get…" Hmm. "I think they know I don't always react to being cornered in socially acceptable ways."

"You can say that again," the boy muttered, not quietly enough. Goro ignored it. 

"They know Pleasant Goro doesn't hold up under stress… or close inspection, people always notice something off and I don't know why. So—"

"'Pleasant Goro'?" the boy interrupted.

Goro shrugged uncomfortably. "It's… I try to elicit good reactions, given I already have several marks against me—"

"No, I get it, it's just funny because that was what I thought of you as the first time I saw you."

Goro stared at him. "When I shot you."

"Uh. No." The boy looked awkward for all of two seconds, then smirked. "What do you think I meant?"

Hmmm. "…Should I remember meeting you before?"

The smirk dissolved into… sadness, maybe? "…No. You shouldn't."

Hmmm. 

Before the ensuing silence could get too awkward, the boy turned away to fuss with the coffeemaker. "So what does it mean for you, that they know the, hah, persona isn't real?"

"You can get away with your 'best self' not being completely genuine if you never, _ever_ drop it. So they try to get you to drop it, and punish you if you do."

"Lovely. How, exactly?"

"Depends on who you ask. Definitely punitive exercise — run laps or do push-ups past the point of exhaustion — and having to clean things without the proper equipment. They're public about that much. If you're in the dorms they'll mess with your menu or sleeping conditions." Goro frowned at the countertop. "Some of the stories from dropouts… I haven't been able to confirm them, so _hopefully_ they're fabrications, but they talked about bastinados. And shock armbands."

"That's… _flagrantly_ illegal," the boy said. "But I suppose that doesn't much matter."

"I hope they're fabrications," Goro reiterated. "But because ex-students would have an obvious motive to fabricate, so they're easily discounted, and current students wouldn't say anything to make trouble… I can see them getting away with it, if they do."

The boy shook his head. "Why are you _going_ to this school?"

Goro folded his arms on the counter and rested his head on them. "Because I thought I'd be ingratiating myself with Shido, and then it wouldn't matter."

"Goro." The boy poked him in the shoulder. "Goro. _Goro_. Goro."

He raised his head enough to look at the boy. "What."

" _Tell Haru the truth._ "

* * *

HO: I hate to say this  
HO: I really, really hate to say this  
HO: But it might be time to ask your employer about transferring schools for the next term

Goro stared at his phone.

HO: I'm not sure we're going to be able to finish by September  
HO: And even if we do…  
HO: Whatever we do, there will be a massive disruption of the school

He should say something, not just stare at it.

GA: I've been thinking that, too  
GA: About the Palace, I mean

He wasn't sure whether it was validating or worrying to find someone else shared his concerns.

HO: Will he do it?  
HO: Arrange a transfer?  
HO: Or will he want you to do something more to, well, pay for it?

Goro wondered if there _would_ have been a… tit-for-tat price, if he'd contacted Shido as planned. Patronage or barter? Not that it mattered now…

GA: Well  
GA: No  
GA: Shido won't arrange a transfer

Tell her it was because Goro wasn't valuable enough. Tell her it was because Jikken was suitably out of sight. Tell her it was because Shido was an unmitigated asshole.

_Tell Haru the truth._

GA: He has no reason to, since I don't actually work for him.

There. Did it. If this blew up in his face he was blaming the prisoner-coffee-subway boy.

Suddenly everything felt so much _lighter_.


	4. Turnabout

HO: How on Earth did you survive quitting??!!

Wasn't _that_ a picture. _"Sorry sir, I'm going to take my mysterious,_ irreplaceable _powers and information sources off elsewhere now. I'm going to… focus on schoolwork. Definitely no sneaking around and doing Metaverse stuff for my own purposes."_ Yes, that would go _wonderfully_.

GA: I don't think that's possible  
GA: I never started

HO: But

The 'typing' indicator appeared and disappeared a few times. It was kind of nice to have confirmation that there was _something_ Noir hadn't known.

HO: But the blackmail?

GA: I was planning to approach him at the time.  
GA: In the next few weeks. I was working on my pitch.  
GA: But then you showed up and knew everything, and it was always going to be a risk but that made it a

Goro hesitated. He didn't want to tell her all the horrifying possibilities the blackmail had brought to mind — what Shido might have done, betrayed. Either she'd already thought of all of it, and she didn't need to know how much it had gotten to him, or she _hadn't_ thought of all of it, and he didn't need to deal with her reaction.

GA: Substantially bigger risk  
GA: And with three people and more information the Metaverse provides a lot more opportunities than it did before, so…  
GA: It never became a worthwhile risk again.

And honestly, now that he had possible ways of achieving his goals without ever _working for Shido_ , the choice was obvious. Why subject himself to working for a man he hated?

HO: But  
HO: What about the information?  
HO: About my father? The short list?

He smiled.

GA: Shadows in Mementos are really easy to interrogate  
GA: They won't shut up  
GA: I have a line on three or four of his associates there

It was actually rather concerning that he couldn't say whether it was three or four.

GA: One of them seems to have disappeared, but the others are as talkative as ever

She didn't reply immediately, so he kept going.

GA: And you assumed I was working for him so I just let you assume because back then I really valued anything you didn't know  
GA: Because you know everything

Okay that was a little more honest than he'd planned.

GA: I probably should have said something since then though

HO: I see  
HO: I'm glad you're not working for Shido, Akechi-kun.  
HO: We'll just have to step up our efforts in the laboratory.

He appreciated the thought, but he wasn't sure how much more effort they could actually provide. It wasn't like any of them had been slacking as it was.

* * *

The way _down_ through Ishikawa's Palace wasn't nearly as _varied_ as the way up. It was just a series of narrow twisting hallways linked by narrower stairwells, regularly blocked by secure doors with puzzle locks. There were security guards who turned into Battle Fiends who resisted all of Loki's attacks, and labcoated scientists who turned into Gathering Demons who resisted curse and _drained_ fire. Robin Hood it was. The occasional Jealous Lovers with their psy damage and Marin Karin, Queen pointed out, had the potential to be even worse — they _could not afford_ to have _any_ of the three of them brainwashed, but if Noir got hit, she could probably take both Goro and Queen out before it wore off.

"Oh, I don't know about that," Noir said. "You've been improving fast, Queen. _Both_ of you are improving fast."

" _Psy_ ," Queen replied flatly. "But you're right, Crow might survive and then Robin Hood could revive me. I would still rather _avoid it_."

* * *

MN: I can see you meant it when you said you couldn't guarantee being honest about NOT doing evil things  
GA: I don't think I said that  
MN: Close enough  
GA: I guess Noir remembered to keep you up to date this time  
MN: I'm going to pretend that wasn't a transparent attempt to distract me  
MN: So if you're not working for Them, do They know about the Metaverse or not?  
GA: …  
GA: That's a good question  
GA: I don't see how they would, but Noir's been taking it for granted that they do…  
GA: Although maybe she thought I told them  
GA: I suppose the bottom line is I hope not but I wouldn't want to count on that

* * *

The Shadows were dangerous, but not as time-consuming as the puzzle locks. Figuring out how to open the locks probably counted as studying for university entrance exams. Which made them less obscure than some Goro had run into (Tsuda-sensei's _fucking_ greenhouse had featured _ikebana_ ), but there was really nothing like typing out a short-answer response on a _security keypad_. Or having to return to the real world to look up major trade centers of the warring states period. Niijima started dragging her math textbook around to consult in safe rooms.

"When school starts again I'll see if I can get a second-year textbook," she said. "Hopefully we won't run into any integrals before then."

"Hopefully we won't run into any integrals _at all_ ," Noir said.

* * *

HO: I've been  
HO: Ah  
HO: Un-arranging the arrangements I made  
HO: The ones to make allegations about you, I mean  
HO: It'll take a few more days to get everything cleared up, but  
HO: Just so you know I'm doing that

Goro stared at his phone, not sure what to say. He hadn't really been _thinking_ about the blackmail lately, though there wasn't any reason he shouldn't.

GA: Thanks

HO: We WILL figure out some way to deal with Jikken

* * *

In between the locked doors, the corridors were lined with tall glass cases holding… preserved specimens. Each was labeled as a success or failure. Goro was mostly sure they represented alumni and dropouts respectively. Or, he was sure about the alumni cases — those had name labels. 

"So if someone graduates, they're dead to him, but human enough to have a name?" Niijima wondered. "That's… interesting."

"How do graduates feel about the school?" Noir asked. "Or I guess you wouldn't know…"

"I researched," Goro said. "It depends on whether their names are attached to the statements. Publicly they're all very grateful for the opportunities and excellent education they received, strict but effective discipline, and so on and so forth, not a bad thing to say. Anonymously… well, there was one person at least claiming to be a graduate who said you'd get a great education if you survived it, but it was a hell crucible and they still weren't sure dropping out wouldn't have been a better choice."

* * *

MN: When you turned down that poppyseed muffin yesterday  
MN: Are you worried about drug tests?  
GA: Very good, Niijima-san!  
GA: I wouldn't have thought you'd know much about that  
MN: There was an incident early in Sis's career where the office was trying to figure out whether they should try to prosecute a guy who gave a huge box of poppyseed-filling muffins to an entire class of rookie policemen about to go do drug tests  
GA: That's hilarious  
MN: CAN schools legally just give drug tests?  
GA: I have no idea.  
GA: But it doesn't really matter.

* * *

August rolled to a close. According to Defarge they were almost level with the ground floor again, but Goro was sure the descent wouldn't stop until _at least_ the depth of the basement he'd infiltrated through. Probably deeper.

* * *

HO: Are you going to be okay?  
GA: I'm always okay  
HO: …  
HO: I think that may be the biggest lie you've ever told me

* * *

It was more Shibuya Station than Mementos this time, but the boy wore his coat and mask and Goro was in his Metaverse clothing, too.

"Just… be careful," the boy said. "And remember, you're not alone. They've got your back. You know that, right?"

Goro sighed. "I… yes. I know that."

* * *

Goro would deal. He might not be _okay_ , but he always… dealt.

* * *

The first two days back at school brought a drug test and a counselor in his face hissing insults about his mother. It was a test of his ability to keep his temper, Goro _knew_ it was a test, and he more or less stayed calm about the insults, but the last person to get that close that unexpectedly had been one of his roommates who was resentful Goro was in high school. He apologized immediately for the attempted head-butt, but he didn't think it helped much. At least he hadn't tried to bite anyone. They held him after school to run laps, so there was one Palace day shot.

Then they interviewed him about any relationship he had with a particular female student who had tried asking him out back in May. That was about her, he was pretty sure, not him — they seemed to accept his explanation that he'd brushed her off and barely spoken to her since. Or before, for that matter. 

Then the next day they came back and wanted to know why he _wasn't_ showing any interest in any of the girls. He should have just said he was focusing on his schoolwork — which was… adjacent to true anyway, he didn't have _time_ for relationships. Instead he made a snide comment about it being rather creepy how invested they were in the sexual interests of fifteen-year-olds. 

They held him after school and made him run laps with no shoes. 

This probably explained the bastinado rumors, anyway. Those _had_ been rather implausible.

Goro wondered, distantly, whether it was a second offense thing, or they actually found mouthing off more of a problem than attempted head-butts. That seemed like the sort of thing they really ought to explain. 

Afterwards the school nurse was standing by to carefully clean the scrapes and apply antibiotics and bandages and _lecture_ him about taking proper care of the injury. 

He couldn't say what he thought about that. He _must not_ say what he thought about that. Lashing out would make things _even worse_. Just smile. Just thank her. Just smile. 

Afterwards he wasn't hungry, so he skipped dinner. No one at the group home asked why he was limping. (Was he even limping? Both feet were equally injured, it wasn't like he wanted to favor one of them.) His roommates noticed the bandages when he took off his slippers before bed. 

"Fuck, look at pretty boy's feet."

"What the hell happened?"

"Ask him."

"You ask him, he's doing the psycho smile again."

(He dreamed blurrily of smiling, smiling as blood ran down the face of the first person he'd felt a connection to since—)

The smile stayed in place the whole next day of school, too, through his math teacher accusing him of not paying attention and grilling him on properties of cotangents. It even stayed in place through the nurse checking on his feet and reprimanding him for not changing the bandages himself. But besides that mild scolding he wasn't in trouble today, so he didn't have to stay after. Good. 

When he met Noir and Niijima — Noir and Queen, she was Queen in the Metaverse — outside the laboratory, Noir put a hand on Queen's shoulder. "Crow?"

"Yes?"

"Are you… all right?"

"I'm fine, thank you."

It was good to get back to work. Good to solve a puzzle lock with perfectly well-remembered properties of cotangents. When there turned out to be a Battle Fiend waiting behind the door, good to _tear its_ fucking _face off_ —

"What in—"

"Crow! Stand down!"

— _with his_ bare hands _it could just_ die _make something else bleed_ —

The Shadow melted away into nothing, and he slammed a fist on the floor. And again. And again. And again, because at least he could _feel_ it his face was about going _numb_ —

"Amrita drop!"

Goro jolted. Stilled. 

His hand hurt. His feet hurt. His face hurt. His mask was completely blocking his peripheral vision. 

"Did that work?" Queen asked anxiously, somewhere behind him. "If it wasn't a spell that caused it—"

"I don't know, I've never— Now he's hyperventilating."

"No I'm not," Goro said, or at least tried to. It came out garbled and wheezy.

"I'm going to—"

"Yes, good idea."

The hallway blurred around him, and then they were outside the Palace. Goho-M. 

"Crow?" Noir said. "We're going back to the real world, and then we're going to want to move fairly quickly. Is it safe for Queen to take your arm?"

Goro tried to get his breathing under control. "Just. Just a. Minute." Sit on the ground. Knees up. Head between his knees. Breathe. "Just a minute."

They gave him the minute.

How novel.

"All right," Goro said finally. "Just — slowly."

Queen did indeed move slowly enough that it didn't set off any panic responses, and carefully helped him to his feet. "Where are we going to go to talk about this?" she hissed, presumably at Noir. "Should we have gone to a safe room instead?"

"No, I don't think being in the Metaverse is doing him any good right now," Noir replied. "I've noticed a park about two blocks south — there's a picnic shelter which shouldn't be visible from the street. We can talk there."

Oh joy.

Maybe he could run away instead.

It turned out he could _not_ , in fact, run away, as the second they returned to the real world the distant throbbing in his feet turned to raw agony, and his knees buckled for a second. Niijima had to support him. She didn't, mercifully, offer to try to carry him.

"Is there something wrong with his—?"

"I guess so, come on, we'll ask about that, too—"

Goro stared at the sidewalk as they walked and tried not to wonder what they wanted to _talk_ about, exactly. Instead he wondered if it was sweat or blood making the bandages feel damp. It _could_ be sweat. But if it was blood, and he bled through his socks… he hadn't budgeted for new shoes, this could be a problem.

So when they reached the picnic shelter, he sat down and started taking his shoes off without prompting. "I may need to ask one of you to get me some plastic bags… Good." It looked like only traces of blood had penetrated the socks, so his shoes were safe. "But I will need some plastic bags. And bandages…"

There was a rather loaded silence.

"What. _Happened_ ," Noir said.

There was probably _some_ way to avoid the question, but— "Running laps. Without shoes."

"Without— Does that happen _often_?" Niijima demanded.

"It can't be _that_ often per student or people's feet would toughen up," Goro said. "I don't know. Often enough that they sterilize the track frequently, I think."

"That's _barbaric_."

"Agreed," Noir said. "But considering we did already see the principal's cognitions of the teachers vivisecting cognitions of the students, it's not… unexpected."

"It's not unexpected," Goro agreed.

"What _was_ unexpected was your showing up smiling like some sort of, of creepy talk show host, and then _killing a Shadow with your bare hands_ , in some sort of… _something_ that Amrita Drop apparently brought you _out_ of. I was not expecting that." Noir crossed her arms, and looked at him. Expectantly.

…Yeah, it had probably been too much to hope for that that would go unremarked. "That… I wasn't… I wasn't _planning_ on that. It just… happens sometimes."

" _Happens sometimes_?" Noir said incredulously.

"Like… spontaneously?" Niijima asked.

And what a liability he'd be if it did. "Not… exactly. Do you know — I know _you_ know, Noir — how sometimes you have to do something you don't want to, but you also can't let on that you don't want to?" Niijima probably did, too, to a lesser extent.

"Yes…"

"Well, there's… a sort of… Sometimes I can… really hit my stride, I guess. Get so it gets easier to just… keep what I'm feeling separate. Keep me separate." He shrugged uncomfortably. "So that's good, but then sometimes — not often! — it sort of… overloads. And the overloads are worse in the Metaverse, for whatever reason."

"Probably the lack of consequences," Noir said dryly.

"If my subconscious is counting on a lack of consequences for physically tackling Shadows, I'd like a few words with it."

"…Point."

"But if it originated in the real world, why did Amrita Drop work?" Niijima wondered. "Did it just shock you out of it? Is it because the… ailment was cognitive to start with?"

Goro shrugged again. "I don't know. I wouldn't have expected it to work."

"Well, it's good that it did," Noir said. "Still, it would be better for it _not to come up_."

"I'll… I agree, and. And I can try."

* * *

Noir canceled on Saturday and Sunday, saying only that something had come up she needed to deal with, and would Goro please stay off his feet and Niijima please stay away from the volleyball team.

GA: Haven't you asked her yet why she's holding off on targeting Kamoshida?  
MN: I think we both feel like we have more immediate concerns right now  
GA: You're that worried about Jikken?  
MN: …  
MN: Yes. We're both deeply and abstractly worried about Jikken.

He didn't dream about the boy. Which was kind of a shame, because it would have been nice to talk to him.

* * *

On Monday after school, Noir asked Goro to meet her in the coffeeshop where they'd done the calling card.

As soon as they'd ordered and settled in, she dropped a manila folder in front of him. "Fill these out, but date them to last January."

Goro didn't touch it. "What is it."

"Your successful application for the Okumura Foods High School Scholarship for Promising Youth. You should have been notified in February, but there was a terrible bureaucratic mix-up and the whole thing got lost for months and months, it's unforgivable. The least the scholarship board can do is make sure you can transfer to where you should be for the rest of the year — starting next week, if we push everything through quickly."

Oh, for— "No."

"It's distracting you," Noir said. "Obviously. It's _considerably worse than_ distracting you."

"Well, _you_ were considerably worse than distracted, too— Anyway this is _completely different_ , I don't want _charity_ —"

"It's this or Makoto tries to get her sister into it."

Oh, hell no. "That would make things _worse_ —"

"It would certainly be a long shot," Noir said. "Hence this."

Reluctantly, Goro reached for the folder. "I haven't agreed to this." He eyed the company letterhead inside. "You actually got the company to pay for this?"

"My father is paying for it, funneled through the company," Noir corrected. "…There are two secretaries and a junior vice president who are under the impression you're my half-brother, but you're not supposed to know about it, so you don't need to do anything differently."

Goro stared at her. "Is this a joke."

"No. I'm not very happy about it, either, but it's convenient." She frowned. "The upsetting thing is that when I told Father we needed to provide a scholarship for an orphaned student I'd met, _he_ thought I'd found a half-sibling, which—" The frown turned into a scowl.

 _Uh_ -oh. If Noir hadn't started out with details, Okumura wouldn't have known Goro was older, but given her December birthday there wasn't a lot of room to be younger and still in high school, so… Kunikazu had been cheating on Noir's mother. "Well, I hope you corrected him. I have enough to deal with in that category already."

"I told him that I hoped he would tell me about any half-siblings, not vice versa. Which I hope will prompt him to investigate the possibility _himself_ , since I wouldn't know where to begin and _do not want to_."

Fair. But— "And he agreed to pay for it, knowing I'm just some random person?"

Noir's face went tight. "He's… somewhat suggestible, at the moment. At least to me."

Goro did not point out that this could be considered evidence for his point of view on the relative morality of rage fugues versus changes of heart. "Okay. And what makes you think any school would _accept_ a midyear transfer from _Jikken_?"

"Not a problem. Okumura Foods has fallen in status a bit since the change of heart, but not enough that Principal Kobayakawa won't fall over himself agreeing to admit a student at our request."

All right. "Shuujin, then. People will find out where I came from, and where I'm living, and what my background is. They always do."

"I don't think anyone has anything to gain from spreading rumors…"

"They _always do_." They'd found out at Jikken, where discussing a student's background outside the guidance or disciplinary offices was strictly forbidden. Goro was just lucky a bastard orphan was fairly mundane in a school where at least a dozen students had _jailed_ parents, not to mention the one who was orphaned due to a murder-suicide. "When they do, I will become social poison, and if you continue to associate with me people will conclude you're sleeping with me… unless they find out about the scholarship source. In which case they'll conclude we're half-siblings." Which would do considerably less damage to Noir's social standing, and wouldn't do Goro's any _harm_ , but…

"Hmm," Noir said. "True, it would be preferable not to let that story spread… I apologize for bringing this up, but would you be amenable to fabricating a connection through your mother?"

Goro did _not_ flinch. "I would think that would be fairly easily debunked."

"Not a blood relationship, but… My father didn't grow up wealthy. They knew each other as children. She came to him for help when he was successful and she was desperate, but he refused, and…"

"And she hanged herself," Goro finished flatly.

"Well… yes." She winced. "Sorry."

Goro wondered if there had been anyone like that, in reality — someone his mother had asked for help, after Shido abandoned her, who'd turned her away. Not that it mattered. He looked away. "…If you're determined to do this I guess that's the best option."

"I am. Fill out the application."

Goro sighed extra-heavily, and reached for a pen.

* * *

The dream-coffeeshop was nicer than the conspiring-coffeeshop, and the dream-coffee was _much_ better.

"So," the boy said. "Shuujin. That'll be… interesting."

"That's one way of putting it," Goro agreed. "Now it will be a race to see which comes first: my deciding Kamoshida needs a rage fugue even before we finish Jikken, _Niijima_ deciding Kamoshida needs a rage fugue even before we finish Jikken, or Noir _admitting_ to either of us that she'd rather nothing drastic happen to Kamoshida just yet."

"That one's tough," the boy said. "There's… not really a right answer, there."

" _You_ know why she wants to hold off," Goro said. "Don't you."

"…It's kind of a long story."

"Isn't everything." Goro drank some of the coffee. "You were right. About them having my back."

"Course I was."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...I guess next it's Makoto's turn to get bailed out of something against her will... I wonder what it'll be? ...That's serious wondering, I don't actually know, although it does make sense the way the plot is probably heading.


	5. Reprise

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hmmm, _hopefully_ this isn't (almost) ending as abruptly as the last two...

Goro wasn't sure what sort of paperwork went back and forth between Shuujin and Okumura Foods (or whatever section of it Noir had suborned), but a thick envelope with acceptance materials from Shuujin and instructions for the transfer was waiting in his mail when he got back to the group home on Thursday.

His legal custodians at the group home signed off on the transfer with little more than a raised eyebrow. Goro could tell they were wondering what was going on behind the scenes, but they didn't care enough to push. Jikken was reluctant, but strictly speaking he didn't _need_ their cooperation and they knew it, so they backed down eventually. 

His classmates at Jikken, when they heard, were mostly silently envious. Goro silently promised them that he _would_ finish Ishikawa's Palace. Even if he didn't strictly _need_ to… Ishikawa deserved to go down. Even if no one else there gave a shit about Goro or vice versa — they still didn't deserve what Jikken would do to them.

And just like Noir had said — everything was in order in time for the next Monday.

He was _really_ glad she was on his side.

* * *

Shuujin was… about what he'd expected. He'd guessed his background would be out inside a month — it took less than a week. Goro was mostly sure Kamoshida had instigated the rumors, but wasn't sure what the man was expecting to gain from it. It wasn't like Goro had been _public_ about how he'd rather jump in a pit of crocodiles than go near the volleyball program. Perhaps Kamoshida just reflexively bullied anyone who seemed potentially vulnerable?

Noir deployed the cover story before the rumor mill had really moved past where Goro was from to what he was doing in Shuujin. His mother had been a childhood friend of Okumura's, cruelly left out in the cold when she needed help the most, and now he was trying to make up for it. Oh, the pathos. 

If that actually successfully prevented all the potential less desirable rumors from going around, Goro would eat all his textbooks. From _both_ schools. 

Also Noir started calling him Goro-kun, including in public, which was not going to do anything to stop some of the less desirable rumors. But Noir had spoken, so Goro and Niijima — Makoto — followed.

Well. Goro followed with Makoto, anyway. Noir was still Noir.

Through it all Goro just kept his mouth shut — he did _not_ keep his smile in place, because Makoto implored him not to 'do the creepy smile thing' — and made mental notes. Which classmates and teachers said what — who was showing real venom or mistrust or even pity beyond the near-universal hunger for scandal. His new science teacher, apparently unable to understand that Jikken had a very rigorous curriculum and also Goro was _very smart_ , responded to his first high quiz score with a scowl and a warning that she'd be _watching_ him. Some students thought he was attractive. Some students resented that other students thought he was attractive. The English teacher obviously felt sorry for him. The history teacher didn't hold any personal animosity but still hoped Goro would cause some sort of problem because at least that would liven things up.

And, of course, there was Kobayakawa.

**Group chat:**

GA: Were you two aware this principal also has a Palace?  
MN: …  
MN: I wasn't.  
HO: …  
HO: I never thought to check.  
HO: What is it?  
GA: I haven't identified the distortion  
GA: Not a castle, laboratory, factory, junkyard, slaughterhouse, yacht, island, or greenhouse  
MN: …  
GA: I've found all of those as school-centered Palaces before, though I haven't explored all of them.  
HO: …  
HO: Interesting.  
HO: Something to keep in mind for after Jikken, I guess.

What was it about Shuujin that Noir didn't want to change?

**Group chat:**

MN: Slaughterhouse  
GA: That one could have been a lot worse, actually  
GA: A teacher who saw the middle school he taught at as a place where dreams came to die  
MN: Not your middle school?  
GA: No  
GA: Happily, since he wasn't exactly wrong  
GA: The second one at my middle school was the greenhouse  
MN: That doesn't sound so bad  
GA: You'd be surprised

* * *

"So how's Shuujin?" the boy asked, fiddling with the coffeepot.

"About what I expected," Goro replied. "Or, the principal is a little worse than I expected, maybe. And Kamoshida hasn't done anything to me except spread rumors, but I'm not even sure why he did that."

"Hmm. Could be he's trying to indirectly retaliate for the stuff Haru was saying about _him_ back in April, but that seems a little subtle for him… Making your life difficult just because he can would be just like him, though."

"I'm gathering that." Goro accepted the cup of coffee. "Oh, something else about Shuujin."

"Hmm?"

"I haven't seen any sign of _you_. Uniform notwithstanding."

"Hmm, no."

The coffee was perfect, as usual. "Even if I knew your name I wouldn't be able to find you on any alumni list, would I."

"Nope."

* * *

They all seemed to have silently agreed they would finish the laboratory, even though they _could_ have abandoned it now. But without the pressure on Goro, they could drop the grueling schedule. Makoto could get back into school activities, and trying to snoop around the volleyball team, and trying to get Noir to keep her academics up; Noir could work on her academics, and better monitor her father's condition, and try to keep Makoto away from the volleyball team; Goro could settle into Shuujin properly, and pick up his Mementos intelligence-gathering.

Ito was one of Shido's accountants, and an excellent source on who was connected with Shido — because all connections with Shido involved money, sooner or later, one way or another. Ito's _job_ didn't require knowing much more than that, but he was a fervent believer in Shido and wanted to know whatever he could, so he was also good for the intra-conspiracy gossip chain, which his Shadow was _happy_ to discuss at length.

Ueda was one of Shido's secretaries, and also a fervent believer. Her Shadow tended to spend at least a quarter of the time rationalizing, justifying, or explaining away Shido's near-constant sexual harassment of her. She answered calls, took notes at meetings, and was Shido's first line of technical support when he'd screwed up something on his computer — her Shadow knew a lot, but you had to ask the right questions.

Hamasaki was a rich old man who was, based on his Shadow, usually about three drinks away from proposing an invasion of Korea. He provided Shido with money and unsolicited advice, and Shido threw less important decisions to him to keep the money coming. He'd drawn up the lists of possible businessmen to recruit.

Ooe was a political ally of Shido's, but even with Defarge Goro still couldn't find Ooe's Shadow anywhere, which was just _worrying_. There didn't seem to be a Palace for him. Non-Shadow Actual Ooe was still active, or else someone impersonating him was, and he was still just as involved with Shido so Goro doubted he'd… _resolved_ his Shadow away. So _where was it_? At least none of the others had disappeared.

Some of the information was interesting, but nothing shocking. Hamasaki had been wining and dining the real estate mogul recruited after they'd decided against Kunikazu Okumura. Ito was a little bent out of shape about cash being funneled to a 'Project Styx' he wasn't cleared to know about, which was ominous but uninformative. Ueda had been told to prepare dossiers on all the prosecutors in Tokyo, and was wondering who exactly was going to read them all.

Huh.

**Group chat:**

GA: Makoto-san, you might want to know  
GA: Shido has people looking at the prosecutor office  
GA: Just looking, so far, as far as I know, but  
GA: He is looking.  
MN: I see.  
HO: As in, he does not currently control the prosecutors but is making moves towards it?  
GA: Presumably  
HO: …  
HO: I thought that would be later. Or earlier.  
HO: How immediate is it?  
GA: Preliminary assessments, I think?  
HO: Right.  
HO: Let's try to finish Jikken first, then, all right, Mako-chan?  
HO: Then we'll see if we can head off that situation before it's fully established.  
MN: …  
MN: That's fine  
MN: Especially since I'm not sure what exactly we would do  
HO: There has to be something.

* * *

By the time Goro had been a Shuujin a month, about half the teachers were warming up to him; the student body seemed roughly evenly divided between believing the cover story, believing he was Noir's secret boyfriend, and believing he was Noir's secret half-brother; and Kamoshida had apparently decided orphans and group homes were old news so he should spread rumors that Goro's mother had been a call girl. _Why_.

**Group chat:**

GA: I'm taking this afternoon off to go smash architecture in Kamoshida's Palace  
MN: What? Why?  
GA: Because then maybe I'll be able to refrain from smashing his smug face  
HO: …  
HO: That's fair.  
HO: Have… fun?  
MN: …  
MN: Can I come?

* * *

It was early November when they completed a short-answer question about Confucianism to open a vault door and found a gleaming chrome bunker, an unsolidified Treasure, and Ishikawa's Shadow sitting in front of a massive bank of monitors. It was giving orders into an intercom — something about excising additional lobules. Goro didn't want to know. 

Makoto signaled a retreat, and they withdrew to the nearest safe room.

"All right," Noir said. "Do you want to try to give him a psychotic breakdown—"

"Rage fugue."

"Or a change of heart?"

Goro thought about it. He wasn't doing this for his own benefit, at this point, so… think about other people. The students who were still there, who were suffering under current policies but who _wouldn't still be there_ if they thought they had better options. What would happen to Jikken, if Ishikawa had a public, fine, breakdown? How much was the school _his project_?

Goro had been planning on gambling that Ishikawa being discredited and fired _wouldn't_ close the school but _would_ make it… less intent on carving people up. 

He didn't have to, was the thing. 

He sighed. "How would we send him a… calling card thing?"

Noir beamed. Makoto… didn't. 

"I… have a concern, actually," she said reluctantly. "We _barely_ beat the last Palace ruler. We only managed because there were multiple robots Crow could turn on each other, and as I understand it that's not normal?"

Damn. That was a good point. "Not in my experience, unfortunately."

"Or in mine," Noir said. She was frowning too, now. "It's not. Of course, the Shadows here have been generally weaker than the space station Shadows, even though the Palace is bigger…"

"Yes," Makoto said. "We don't know. So, since you only get one chance after sending a calling card, my proposal is we come here _without_ sending a card, provoke the Shadow into transforming so we can get an idea of what we're dealing with, then run away and go prepare more… or come up with an alternative approach, if it looks like something we can't handle."

"Huh." Noir frowned thoughtfully. "We never… I _think_ that should work. Assuming we can get away, that is."

"Sounds good," Goro agreed. "Although just to warn you in advance, attacking a Palace ruler Shadow without using the rage spell — or stealing its Treasure, whatever — does tend to make the actual person jumpy and paranoid for a few days afterwards. It's not directly a problem for us, but. To let you know." 

"Thank you," Noir said. "All right. We'll rest up and do an… exploratory attack next time."

"…Push it back to Monday," Goro said reluctantly. "I can't afford to play hooky from the cultural festival."

"Oh, good point," Makoto said. "What's your class doing again?"

"A shaved ice stand, assuming they actually manage to get the equipment and supplies in time. That's not on me, at least, but I have to show up." More precisely, he was supposed to 'hang around and look pretty and draw customers'.

"Lucky you," Makoto sighed. "Our class is getting _musical_."

* * *

MN: Did you see Kamoshida going around… smarming at potential students at the festival?  
MN: It made me sick to my stomach.  
MN: I felt like I should have been yelling at them to go anywhere else.  
MN: Which would not be a very student council-like thing to do.  
GA: I didn't see, actually.  
GA: There was an incident.  
MN: ???  
GA: A syrup incident.  
GA: Fortunately I was standing too far away to be plausibly blamed, so it's not my problem anymore, but everyone had to help with initial damage control.  
MN: …That would explain the overpowering fake cherry smell late in the evening?  
GA: Hopefully they'll get it completely cleaned up before anyone needs to use the gym or he'll be even more insufferable.  
MN: No  
MN: I'm going to hope it CAN'T be completely cleaned up and he just has to live with the smell.  
GA: Fair.  
GA: …  
MN: … what?  
GA: Have you asked her why not Kamoshida yet.  
MN: You're at Shuujin now, you could ask her.  
GA: I told you to ask her first.

* * *

Ishikawa's Shadow turned into a sort of… camel-centaur thing, with two extra arms terminating in crab claws and eyes on all sides of its head. Defarge informed them it was named Paimon.

It liked to trample people with its hooves, and it liked to use its special variant on brainwash that made you attack _yourself_. —Which was extremely unsettling, but not nearly as dangerous as the potential alternatives of Noir and Makoto attacking each other at their elemental weaknesses or _anyone_ attacking Goro while he had Defarge out. 

It was neither strong against nor weak to nuclear and psy, but when Goro dropped Defarge to try Loki and then Robin Hood, it looked like it resisted fire and was immune to bless and curse. 

It was just as well the Shadow hadn't shown itself during Goro's early, solo exploration. He didn't need to defeat a Shadow for the frenzy spell to take, but doing at least a little damage first helped, so he would have attacked with Loki, and that… wouldn't have turned out well for him.

They retreated while still in relatively good condition — better to leave too early than too late. They'd done a respectable amount of damage to Paimon, but not enough to be _sure_ they could defeat it.

"And I'd be happier if we were sure whether it has another form," Noir fretted as they regrouped in the real world. "Sometimes they do."

"More armor," Makoto said. "Better weapons. Look for anti-brainwash cures. The usual stock-up on magic restoratives…"

"…I wonder if I could get another Persona which would do some actual damage to it," Goro said.

* * *

Noir and Makoto both objected to his "go looking for trouble in new Palace without summoning Persona, develop new Persona" plan, even though it was exactly what he'd done to get Defarge. 

"I don't care how many times you've done it, it's incredibly dangerous," Noir said. "We're coming with you. With a revival bead."

"…Fine. If you insist." He paused. "…Thanks."

"Which Palace?" Makoto asked. "I'd suggest Kobayakawa's but we still don't know his distortion…"

"Hmm, let's see." Goro pulled up the app and started scrolling through the saved destinations, looking for those he'd never visited. "There's a man who thinks of his house as a clock…"

"A _clock_?"

"As in running like clockwork." (He'd had worse foster home experiences, far worse, but that one had been frustrating because it was… okay-ish as long as Goro could Follow The Rules, the way the other kids did, and he kept screwing up. After three screwups he was sent away, opportunity lost. He'd looked into the man on the MetaNav mostly to validate his feelings that it _wasn't normal_ to be _that_ hung up on Rules.) "There's a bureaucrat, actually not one of Shido's, who thinks his office building is like an auction."

"Oh, _that's_ a good sign."

"Exam proctor who thinks the test center is a funhouse… University student who thinks the campus is a bordello…"

"Ew."

"Random person who thinks of the dojo he takes lessons at as a bowling alley…" Goro had been trapped sitting next to the man on a delayed train and heard _all about it_. But then, his most recent discovery— "Oh, and Makoto, your sister's boss thinks the courthouse is a circus."

Noir raised her eyebrows. "I was going to suggest the bowling alley out of morbid curiosity, but perhaps we should investigate the circus."

"But do I really want to know?" Makoto muttered.

"It could be worse," Noir said. " _It_ could be the auction."

* * *

They took a few days off, and went to the courthouse on Saturday afternoon. (Makoto wore one of Noir's jackets, with the hood up, to minimize the chance of her sister seeing her hanging around and asking awkward questions.) Inside the Metaverse was a huge… conglomeration of tents, mostly striped in blood-red and bone-white. Strident, too-fast organ music blared from no identifiable direction. 

"I don't think even the lab is this _obnoxious_ ," Makoto said. "This does not fill me with confidence in the office."

Noir shrugged. "More obnoxious Palace doesn't mean a worse person. Come on, let's find some Shadows so Crow can put his life at risk."

They don't have to go very far into the first tent (the music getting even more shrill and off-key) before being accosted by _clowns_ which turned into Life-Draining Spirits. Noir and Makoto dutifully held them off without actually destroying them, which really was a pretty ridiculous thing to ask them to do. He mentally swore he'd make it up to them. And…

_**Are you prepared to follow your new loyalty and love with everything you have, and forsake the past?**_

" _Medea_!"

* * *

"Besides ice attacks, which I'm hoping will make an actual impact on Paimon, she has some healing abilities!" Goro told the boy. "Not as good as Makoto's, but I'm still pleased with it."

"Congratulations," the boy said sincerely. "I have to say, I'm fascinated by your Personas. They all come from inside you, and I thought maybe it's how you wear masks in real life that lets you draw them out so well, but at the same time… the mythological Medea was a priestess, wasn't she?"

"Couldn't say." Goro shrugged. "Maybe my soul is just empty enough for all the extras."

"That doesn't work with things coming from inside you, and also, it would apply to me, too, so I'm going to pretend it's not a distinct possibility."

"Right… because you're the one who could _recruit_ Personas. Aren't you."

The boy smirked and saluted him with his coffee mug. "So, next step change of heart?"

"As soon as Noir is satisfied with her vegetables and armor purchases, anyway…"

* * *

This time they did the calling card in Noir's house, using Noir's father's home office with its high-quality, cardstock-compatible printer — the results were less elegant, but also harder to trace, so… It was just a matter of arguing over _font _and making sure nothing got saved or cached.__

 _Matsu Ishikawa: You are corrupted by contempt. I will free you of your distorted desires._  
_—The Count of Monte Cristo_

"Contempt? Really?"

"I don't know, just trying to… boil it all down to something short… Do you think it's wrong?"

"No…"

 _Getting_ the calling card to Ishikawa would have been simpler if Goro had still been attending Jikken. Fortunately the school did not have a private parking facility, and Noir was able to slip into the shared ramp in a hoodie and sunglasses and leave the calling card under Ishikawa's car's windshield wipers. 

The Treasure materialized as a… Goro couldn't come up with a better description than 'giant jar of brains'.

Paimon _did_ , in fact, have a secondary form it assumed after they beat the first one. It was a _giant_ brain that hovered about five meters up, rotated in place, peppered them with weak gun attacks, and resisted _everything_.

"Should have figured his Shadow would be as long-lasting and _annoying_ as his damn Palace," Noir said, lip curled in disgust. "Well, it's not _immune_ to everything, we just need to be persist — wait, what's it — _shit_ —"

Goro had never been on the receiving end of a megidola before.

* * *

_It was dark, but not too dark to see it was blue. Goro was alone, but he knew there was something else — someone else — something else not very far away, and if he found them he knew they would tell him the reasons for everything and what he should do, what he should **be** —_

* * *

"—Up, wake up, wake up, this _works_ , wake up, wake up," Noir chanted raggedly.

He'd never been on the receiving end of a Revival Bead before, either.

Goro opened his eyes to see Noir looked awful. Of course she did, she'd been hit with the same thing that— "Queen?"

"Needs Robin Hood," Noir said. "Do you need a carrot—?"

"No—"

"Good, I'm going to—" She spun back towards the Paimon-brain, raising her grenade launcher. "Megidola _my_ team, will you—"

Goro summoned Robin Hood and found Queen, collapsed on the floor. "Recarm! I thought—"

 _BLAM_!

"—It resisted guns?"

Defarge had confirmed it, in fact, but now the brain was definitely — stopping its spin — sinking — blurring—

As Makoto sat up, the now-Ishikawa-shaped Shadow hit the floor and fell to its knees.

Makoto rubbed her head as she stumbled to her feet, staring at the Shadow. "What _happened_?"

"I'm… not quite sure," Noir said. "Except… I think we won?"

The Shadow started crying.

"Crow, do you want to…?"

No, actually, he wanted not to talk to Ishikawa at all. "I guess I should."

Ugh, what was it Noir had done with her father's Shadow, to make this work? Like hell was he kneeling down by it.

Goro looked at the Shadow, and thought about what he'd thought about Jikken before he researched it, before his cynicism kicked in even. What a _chance_ it had looked like. "You have something… your school is something that could really help people. _People_ , that's your problem. I don't like most people, either, but you have to understand they're people, you have power, you have to _treat them like people_ , you have to stop — stop— Dammit!" He turned to the other two. "How am I supposed to tell him to stop trying to force people to change when we're here forcing him to change?"

"Forget the philosophy, tell him to stop torturing teenagers," Noir advised.

Fine. He turned back to the Shadow. "If you wouldn't do it to a rich kid with attentive parents with lawyers, don't do it to _any_ kid." He turned away from the Shadow, and stalked (hopefully he pulled off a stalk) over to the giant jar of brains. "You two healed enough to help me carry this thing?"

Noir joined him, though she still looked a little bedraggled. "Do you two have time for dinner? Crow, there's a pancake place…"

* * *

Considering how _exhausting_ defeating a Palace ruler and _outrunning a collapsing Palace_ was, it seemed like immediately going out for dinner wasn't the most logical tradition, but they seemed to be establishing it and Goro wasn't paying, so… fine. The pancakes were good at least.

The jar of brains turned into a case of beautifully detailed pewter miniatures of students. Noir figured they could probably get a few thousand yen for it, maybe.

"How are we going to know if it worked?" Makoto asked. "The Palace is gone, yes, but… did it do what we want it to?"

"And even if it did what we wanted to Ishikawa, will _he_ do what we want to the school," Goro said. "I'm… not sure. Wait and see, I guess."

"Do any of the teachers have Mementos Shadows you could interrogate?" Noir asked. "Get an inside perspective?"

"Not that I have a line on already, but I could look… I think wait for a while, though. Nothing's going to happen _immediately_."

"True. But I hope it works out well. That place is…" Noir stared into space for a moment, then shook herself. "So! Time off, then prosecutors?"

He waited to see if Makoto would say anything. She didn't. "Sounds fair."

"We can meet at my house, I think, going forward?" Noir offered. "My father didn't notice us using the home office, even, so it should be fine… If that's all right? I'll buy snacks…"

"Works for me."

* * *

They were in the interrogation room, but both sitting, and the table was completely covered with research notes on judges and prosecutors and Shido's maneuverings. A lot of the notes were still blank, though, because they really hadn't gotten very far. But they'd just started.

"Full steam ahead, huh?" the boy asked, leafing through a folder of known shell companies. "Don't wear yourselves out."

Goro shook his head. "We're on a much less grueling schedule now. It's fine. And it's good to be… Noir's father was important for her and a lot of employees, and the Jikken Palace was important for… people who had to go to Jikken. This — this is related to the, the main goal. I feel less like I'm… slacking."

"Slacking, he says," the boy said, apparently to the ceiling.

Goro stared at a printout of the courthouse webpage without seeing it. "Can I… ask you an awkward question?"

"Fire away."

Goro rolled his eyes, but didn't look up. "If that was on purpose it was _terrible_."

"What?"

"The question is — why was I shooting you."

"Ah. That. Hmm." The boy leaned back in his chair. "Well… two reasons, mostly. Future you was kind of a psycho, and Shido ordered you to."

Goro nodded slowly. "Well that's a stupid reason."

"You said it, not me."

"But… you didn't die, did you."

"Well, we've been saying you shot me, but you didn't shoot _me_ , exactly." The boy paused. "And really it's not _you_ exactly either, so… I'm not sure why we're in here again."

"Not sure all this stuff would fit on the the cafe counter."

"We should grab one of the tables there, then."

"Good idea. Next time."

* * *

In mid-December, the entire group home got the flu. Goro jealously guarded his box of tissues from his roommates, plotted rage-fugue revenge as soon as he found out who had screwed up getting them vaccinated this year, and finally got up the nerve to message Makoto with his conclusions.

GA: I have an idea  
GA: About why Noir doesn't want to change anything at Shuujin  
MN: ?????  
GA: Have you ever heard of a fixed point?  
MN: Nothing is coming to mind?  
GA: All right, well, the idea of a fixed point is that it's an event in the timeline that cannot be altered  
GA: And if someone tries something terrible happens  
MN: …  
GA: I think something coming up at Shuujin must be a fixed point

He took a deep breath, regretted it, coughed for three minutes, then kept going.

GA: And I think Noir is a time traveler  
GA: She's Haru Okumura from the future

He waited.

GA: Makoto?  
MN: I'm thinking.  
MN: That sounds ridiculous, but compared to everything that's already happened this year…  
MN: It would explain a lot, wouldn't it?  
MN: And yet I have so many more questions…

So did Goro, but he wasn't completely sure he wanted them all answered.

MN: Are you going to ask her about it?  
GA: Hell no.  
GA: You can if you want, but not me.  
GA: I'm not talking about it with Noir unless she wants to.  
GA: If then.  
MN: Oh?  
GA: Do you really think I would hear ANYTHING good about myself?  
MN: …  
MN: If she is from the future, future you was not a friend, no.

Future Goro had been working for Shido, possibly for real, was kind of a psycho, and might have done something to Noir personally. Or maybe to her father?

MN: I think  
MN: I think I'm not going to ask, either  
MN: Not yet, at least  
GA: Are you picturing her reaction if she tells you and you already know?  
MN: …

That was probably a yes.

* * *

He got over the flu in time to _annihilate_ his exams, have to dodge Christmas date invites from two different classmates, and get recruited by Noir into Secret Operation Make Makoto's Sister Take New Year's Off, On The Day Makoto Has That Student Council Meeting So She Doesn't Know We're Doing It.

"I'm mostly sure they shouldn't be _making_ her work, given the holiday. She's just a workaholic anyway. So, I'm hoping we can find her Shadow in Mementos and… guilt her into staying home. Not beat it, just… talk to it."

"Does she have a Shadow in Mementos?"

"Yes," Noir said. "I checked."

"Well, I've had mixed success trying to get people to do things through their Shadows, but… worth a try, I suppose?"

On the train on the way to Shibuya, Noir cleared her throat. "Goro-kun, I'm… not sure I say, enough, what a difference your help has made. Or how much I appreciate that."

Goro shot a sideways glance to see she wasn't looking at him, either. "I… think it would be fair to say it isn't as much of a difference as your help has made for me, Noir. And I appreciate it."

Silence, except for an asshole in a suit throwing a tantrum about not getting a seat and kicking a stroller, which started the kid inside crying. Goro listened with half an ear to see if the guy mentioned his name. Anyone self-important enough to announce his name during a commute with the expectation of getting special treatment probably deserved a rage fugue during business hours.

"…I don't mind if you call me Haru, Goro-kun."

Haru Okumura from the future was still Haru Okumura, he guessed. "I can… All right then. Haru-san."

* * *

_Goro leaned against a rusting metal door, and watched someone in his Metaverse costume walk away into the darkness. The other person waved jerkily, but didn't turn around._

_The door behind him opened suddenly, and he fell backwards into steady hands,_ and then he woke up.

He smiled faintly, and rolled over and tried to get back to sleep. Lots to do tomorrow.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Paimon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paimon).   
>  I got the idea of the SIU Director's Palace being a circus from [Butterfly Cascade](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12747186/chapters/29075064).
> 
> I would like you all to know that before I decided Goro would definitely try to explain the "fixed point" concept himself rather than do this, we had the following exchange which I liked very much:
> 
> GA: Okay first read this [url]  
> MN: I think you need to double check that link  
> GA: No that's what I wanted  
> MN: ...  
> MN: It's Featherman fanfiction  
> GA: It's a crossover with Doctor Who, and you just need to read the part about fixed points  
> GA: It's marked explicit but there's nothing in the chapter I linked you to  
> MN: You sent me fanfiction as background reading  
> MN: Why does this 'pairing' have eight people in it  
> GA: WILL YOU JUST READ THE PART ABOUT FIXED POINTS
> 
> Anyway, just an epilogue to go!


	6. Epilogue: Reverberation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not 100% happy with this, but... don't think I'm going to be, so.

Goro agreed immediately that inflicting rage fugues on every dirty judge and prosecutor they identified wasn't an option. That many people, that obviously connected — it would raise way too many questions. "Now, if _one_ of them had a rage fugue, and he had incriminating evidence in his desk or something…"

"Except that's a very big if and we aren't in a good position to plant evidence," Haru said. 

Makoto looked mildly scandalized at the very idea of planting evidence. 

"We don't even _have_ any… real world evidence," Goro said, "so if it wasn't really there it wouldn't work. It's a very big if."

Makoto shook her head. "I think what we have to do is find people who _can_ properly investigate, and tell them _where_ to investigate."

So they spent most of January trying to find places they could drop anonymous tips about dirty prosecutors and judges. Makoto's sister, of course, but Makoto's sister couldn't possibly investigate _all_ of them and besides, too much would just make her a target. So, they were trying to find other non-corrupt prosecutors plus non-corrupt cops and maybe investigative journalists worthy of the name.

And then figure out how to contact them anonymously, of course, but so far _depressingly few_ of their possibilities remained possibilities after a talk with their Shadows.

Alternatively, of course, they could try to change the SIU Director's heart via his Palace! The organ music gave them all migraines.

They still weren't sure of the exact effects of Ishikawa's change of heart. Jikken was still operating, and there hadn't been any huge news stories or even explosions of rumors. A coach and two teachers had been fired for undisclosed reasons. Goro hoped it was a good sign.

It was probably a better sign than Shido's money going anywhere near any school, ever. Ito's Shadow remained annoyingly uninformative on what _that_ was about.

Things at _Shuujin_ were… mixed. It would ordinarily have been a good thing for Kamoshida to decide to ignore Goro for a while (evidently in favor of trying to destroy the basketball coach), but the timing was terrible.

"What do you mean?" Makoto asked as they took off their shoes in the entryway of the Okumura home.

"I mean that if he were spreading rumors about me like he usually is, I could be confident in hardly anyone wanting to come near me," Goro explained. "But the student body has the attention span of a grasshopper and has probably forgotten all about whatever my checkered past was back in December. And it's only a week until Valentine's Day." Makoto was staring at him. "What?"

"You would rather have Kamoshida telling lies about your mother than have a few people offering you chocolate and asking you on dates?"

Was that strange? Goro didn't think that was strange. "Turning people down in a way that won't upset them is annoying, turning people down without worrying about upsetting them damages my reputation — although I suppose if Kamoshida's going to start back up eventually maybe I shouldn't worry about that — and _not_ turning everyone down would make commitments I have no intention of keeping."

"Uh-huh. Well, I'm going to warn you right now to expect some non-romantic but homemade chocolate from Haru. She's been practicing."

What? Surely not. "Anyone who thinks my budget could possibly extend to—"

"Oh, good, you're here," Haru said. "Come on, we need to… um… something has come up."

They trooped into their secret headquarters, a.k.a. the Okumura formal dining room (site of Tomioka's perfectly timed rage fugue, which Goro was still proud of no matter what anyone said). It hadn't gotten much use since Kunikazu's change of heart. Haru had, as usual, provided a plate of snacks.

It included some slightly misshapen chocolates.

 _Valentine's Day_ , Makoto mouthed. Goro ignored her.

Haru folded her hands on the table and leaned forward. "So. Um. I know you've both wondered how it is I know all the things I do about the Metaverse," she said. "I haven't said because it's… complicated. It hasn't gotten any less complicated, but there have been… developments, and you're… going to hear _something_ , so…"

"All right," Makoto said, when it seemed like Haru was waiting for someone to say something. 

"I know… I found out what I know when I was part of a team, that was very active in the Metaverse. The team took down several corrupt people with changes of heart, but then we tried to fight a… thing at the bottom of Mementos. And we lost. And we were dying." She took a deep breath. "And then I woke up almost three years in the past."

There was a moment of silence. 

"That's what we figured," Makoto said sedately.

"You — what?"

"I think Goro came up with it after he discarded the 'mysterious Metaverse body-stealer' theory? We talked about it in November. It seemed like the best explanation."

"To be _strictly_ fair I had a few additional hints that time travel might be involved," Goro added.

Haru facepalmed. "And you just… never mentioned it?"

Makoto shrugged. "We were waiting for you to bring it up."

" _You two._ "

"We also worked out that Makoto was a friend in the future, and I was an enemy," Goro put in. "…Although that part wasn't very difficult."

"I guess it wouldn't be," Haru sighed. "Mako-chan, you were on the team. Even before I joined, actually. Goro-kun, you… weren't. Well, you tried to infiltrate for a while."

Another team member, Goro assumed, was a boy with gray eyes and curly hair. 

"What's happened now is another team member contacted me. She came back, too, and so did a third team member. Also, she didn't _remember_ the future until just December, so…" She gave Makoto a hopeful smile.

So Makoto might remember in the future. Goro… sort of hoped she wouldn't, but he wasn't about to _say_ that. (And one of the other team members was a boy, but… he wasn't going to hope, there.)

"I see. Does she know _why_ she suddenly remembered?" Makoto asked.

"No. Well, she said she's working on some theories, but for now, no."

Makoto nodded, frowning. "And is this… exclusively the team? That… came back in time, and is remembering the future?"

 _"Why do you keep talking to me? You know I'm not even here."_ "If you're trying to ask about me," Goro said slowly, "I have reason to believe I did not come back in time."

"I wouldn't have thought you would have," Haru said. "You weren't there, when we were disappearing — you were, um. Your future self was probably dead."

Somewhere with a rusting metal door, Goro guessed.

"And I don't think there's been any indication that it's more than just the team. We were the only ones who were, were disappearing."

"But we don't _know_ that the mechanic has anything to do with the disappearing," Makoto pointed out. "That's just a guess. So we should keep the possibility in mind, as a worst-case — or at least severely complicated — scenario."

…If Shido had come back in time and remembered anything about them, Goro the throwaway child would be dead already. That wasn't as comforting a thought as Goro had hoped it would be.

"Well, that — the mechanic of it — is something you should talk to Futaba about." Haru smiled brightly. "She's coming over, with Yusuke, and also Hifumi Togo, who wasn't on our team and didn't come back in time but has been working with them… Sorry I couldn't give you more warning, but I didn't want to shut you _out_ …"

"We've had worse surprises," Goro said. "…You did tell them I would be here, I hope?"

"Yes. And that you're one of us. It won't be a problem."

Or at any rate, anyone who tried to make problems would have problems with Noir, so — not a problem for very long, anyway. "I'll take your word for it."

"While we're waiting," Makoto said. "I am about seventy-five percent sure Sis has corroborated that tip about Prosecutor Maeda and is pursuing it further."

They'd (very anonymously) provided two tips to Makoto's sister, one of them about a prosecutor who'd been engaged in some rather odd real estate transactions and the other… "Maeda was the one taking bribes from the yakuza, right?" And not a _direct_ connection to Shido, but Shido was interested in the interplay between organized crime and the people who were supposed to be stopping it.

"Right. I'm not sure what her next steps are going to be, but I'm thinking that if it turns into a proper investigation, the way people in the office react to it could help us decide who else might be trustworthy?"

They talked prosecutors for another half hour or so, until Haru's phone rang, and she jumped up to get the door.

"This will be… interesting," Makoto murmured. 

Haru returned leading a boy and two girls. Goro guessed they were maybe a year or two younger, especially the red-haired girl who — interestingly — seemed to be the leader. (The boy did not have gray eyes or curly hair. Goro was _not_ disappointed.)

"Mom wanted to come, too," the red-haired girl was saying, "but she's not quite out of the hospital yet and we really should figure out how much they'll be watching her before we risk leading them anywhere."

"I still find that _very_ strange," Haru said. "Mako-chan, Goro-kun, these are Yusuke Kitagawa and Futaba Sakura, my… my friends, from the other timeline. And this is Hifumi Togo, their teammate."

"Isshiki, actually," the red-haired girl said. 

"Of course, my apologies," Haru said. "And… I guess you already told Hifumi who everyone was?"

"Yyyyup," the red-haired girl — Futaba — replied. "Hi Makoto, hi Akechi, I don't know if Haru told you how we know you already but if not Inari'd probably tell you by accident in the next fifteen minutes—"

"Hey!"

"—So… time travel stuff."

"Haru explained some of it," Makoto said. "And we were able to deduce some of the rest." She leaned forward. "I was just asking Haru — how much of an idea of the mechanics do you have? How sure are you who came back?"

Futaba made a face. "About the time travel mechanic, nothing. Nothing beyond _a Metaverse thing_ , anyway. About who came back — I'm not _sure_ , but it makes sense that it's the team, doesn't it? It — feels right that it's the team. Even though we don't all remember."

"You said something about Ann, right?" Haru asked.

"I saw her in November, briefly," the boy — Yusuke — said, pausing his effort to unilaterally obliterate the snacks. "She didn't know me."

"And I think if Ryuji remembered, we'd all know about it by now. But! I think Morgana left a note in our — mine and Mom's — mailbox, just over a year ago now," Futaba said. "…Granted I'm mostly guessing it was him because lack of opposable thumbs would explain how terrible the handwriting was…"

Makoto raised a hand. "Lack of thumbs?"

Haru made an odd expression. "Right, ah… In the real world, Mona-chan — Morgana — looks like a cat."

…A cat.

"In the Metaverse he looks like a weird anthropomorphic cat," Futaba added. "But he has thumbs there."

…Great.

"Usually," Yusuke said. "In Mementos—" He broke off as Futaba elbowed him in the ribs.

"Let's not try to explain _that_ part when we don't have any proof, mmkay?" 

Hifumi spoke up for the first time, directly addressing Makoto and Goro. "They said he can turn into a van."

 _Why not_. "…The story behind this teammate keeps getting longer."

"Yes, it does, but we don't know all of it." Futaba tucked her hair behind her ears. "Anyway we think Mona remembers, but unlike everyone else I can't exactly look his contact information up."

"Have Prometheus look for him in Mementos?" Haru suggested. "He should be going there regularly, shouldn't he?"

"Except we don't know how what he'll do is going to change remembering the future," Futaba said. "But that wouldn't hurt, anyway."

Haru nodded. "And what about Akira? Do we know where he is?"

"I could find out," Futaba said. "But, um. I've had… Okay, I know this is going to sound funny, but I'm mostly sure Akira _did_ come back in time but _doesn't_ remember — most of the time — because of a couple of, um. A couple of dreams I've had."

 _Really_.

"I didn't tell Yusuke about it because they're dreams, right? But they were _lucid_ dreams, and Prometheus… I don't think they're just dreams."

Haru frowned. "I've dreamed about Akira a few times, I think, but they seemed like normal dreams as far as I could tell… Yusuke?"

"Most of my dreams are about the museum." Which must mean something, because Haru and Futaba and the other girl all winced.

But…

"Prometheus is a navigation Persona, right?" Goro asked. "You said something about scanning…"

"I'm the navigator, yeah," Futaba said, giving him a wary look.

Haru jumped in. "Apparently it's possible to have a… I'm sorry, I should have explained this earlier. You know how Akechi had Robin Hood, and then also Loki? Well, Goro has both of them, and has also activated two more Personas — he doesn't recruit them, more sort of… draws them out — and one of them has some navigational abilities. Not as good as Prometheus or Necronomicon, but _so_ much better than running blind."

"…Huh," Futaba said.

"Defarge," Goro said. "I only got Defarge in May. And the number of… I have had some lucid dreams, since then."

" _Huh_ ," Futaba said. "That's… interesting. I don't particularly remember lucid dreaming before…"

He almost didn't say anything. The new people didn't trust him, he didn't _know_ them, this could unbalance everything, and— Almost.

But…

"Curly hair, gray eyes, glasses in the real world and red gloves in the Metaverse?" Goro asked, before he could change his mind.

Everyone turned to stare at him.

"…Yes," Haru said. "Since _May_?"

Goro shrugged, and didn't correct her. "He doesn't talk about himself much, but I did get that he was from the future."

"…That's where you got the additional time travel clues from?" Makoto asked.

Haru facepalmed again. "All my trouble to be discreet about the time travel and Akira tells you _in your dreams_?

"Oh, I haven't told you about the cultural festival yet," Futaba said. "How Yusuke accidentally told Hifumi."

"Yes, well, you _non_ -accidentally told your mother _and Sakura-san_ , so I hardly think—"

"You agreed that was the—"

"Wait, _adults_?" Goro said. "You told _adults_?"

"I think they didn't have much of a choice," Haru said, but she didn't look thrilled about it, either.

"We didn't, and it's a long story, but I really think this could be helpful," Futaba said. "We can trust Sojiro and my mom. Really."

"Trustworthy to you does not mean trustworthy in general," Goro said flatly.

"Sakura-san is trustworthy," Haru said. "Although I'm not sure how much help he could really be…"

"You _guuuuuuys_ —"

"No, this is good," Hifumi interrupted. "The thing that needs to be done, going forward, is your mother needs to convince Haru-san and Akechi-kun — and me and Yusuke and Makoto-san to a lesser extent, but especially the mostly independent operators who do not want to rely on adults — that she and Sakura-san are trustworthy and helpful."

"But they're—"

"Rather than you needing to convince your mother that it is all right for you to be involved in potentially dangerous Metaverse activities."

Futaba stopped mid-word, and blinked. "…Ah. Hmm. That could work. Mom might realize it's a diversion, but I guess if it's a _real_ diversion… Huh."

"I haven't agreed to meet any adults," Goro said, crossing his arms.

"Well I haven't agreed you can meet my mom, either," Futaba retorted.

"That's really not a problem," Haru said. "Can we just — put off the adults thing for now? Your mother's still in the hospital, do we need to tell them anything?"

Futaba sighed. " _I_ do. But I don't have to tell them about you guys — not any identifying details — if it's that important."

"For now," Haru said. "Setting that aside, we should compare notes about what we've been doing. You know about my father, and Ishikawa is kind of a long story, but most recently we're looking at corruption, especially related to Shido's conspiracy, in the prosecutors' office. A lot of our research has been talking to various people's Shadows — people in the office, and Goro has some of Shido's underlings' Shadows identified…"

"Useful," Futaba said. "Well, we've been — we haven't been working against, exactly — we've been — ugh." She started over. "They tried to kill my mom again. Faked an accidental overdose. It was to get her out of the way so they can use the cognitive psience to do… whatever they can do with it, with no one with a Persona and no easy navigation, but — there's a way to technologically tear a hole into the Metaverse. And they might have it."

"Fuck," Goro said. Project Styx, maybe?

"My feelings exactly," Futaba said. "But we destroyed the access point they had, so that should slow them down."

Haru groaned. "And the situation with Madarame is completely unchanged—"

"It's under control," Yusuke said.

"No it isn't," Hifumi said.

Yusuke retaliated, "The situation with Hifumi's mother is also not under control."

"Yeah," Futaba said. "And Kana's parents, and I have some ideas about getting the Mementos doors open, and — and you guys are all in school with _Kamoshida_ , aren't you? Ew."

"Yes," Makoto said. "We are."

"Currently he's plotting against the basketball coach," Goro added.

"Do I want to know?" Hifumi asked.

"No, but you probably need to, I'll tell you later—"

"There are _too many things to do next_ —"

"Yusuke, did you eat _all_ the food—?"

And then everyone was talking at once. Goro ended up helping Makoto describe Kamoshida's Palace to Hifumi while Haru interrogated Yusuke about his nutritional situation and Futaba sabotaged his efforts to dodge questions.

It _was_ unbalanced, but. Workable. (Especially if the adults kept their distance.) He could work with this. This could work.

* * *

"Akira Kurusu," he said, back in the cafe.

The boy smiled. "Guilty."

Goro smiled back. "I am supposed to tell you — from Noir, Oracle, and Fox — that the _second_ you remember you are to text Oracle and get your ass to Tokyo."

The boy — Akira — made a face. "That… Yes. That is — also my plan."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally used the mystery boy's name this chapter, so good place to repeat: If a point arrives where more of my readers would prefer I switch to Ren than prefer I stick with Akira, I'm open to doing that. It's not very important to me.
> 
>  ~~The next story will focus on Ryuji (and Ann), and I still can't come up with a damn title. Extracurriculum? High School of the Damned? Keep a Secret? Discretion? Valor and Discretion? SIGH.~~ Valor and Discretion is in progress!

**Author's Note:**

> Come talk at me at [my tumblr](https://ceescedasticity.tumblr.com/)!


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